Orison 
Swett 
Marden 


/ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

I 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH 

.,VERS1TY  OF  CAUFORNIA 

UlBRARV 

LOS  ANGELES,  CAUF. 


ANDREW  CARNEGIE 


THRIFT 


BY 

ORISON   SWETT    HARDEN 

Author    of    "Character,"    "Cheerfulness,"    etc. 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS    Y.    CROWELL    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1918, 
By  THOMAS    Y.    CROWELL   COMPANY 


HQ 


TO    MY    OOOD    FRIEND 

JAMES    A.    NEAL 


K  TABLE    OF    CONTEXTS 

PACE 

.1         I.  Thrift,  the   Foundation   of  All  Great- 
1 

'                                NESS               1 

y 

II.  A  Safeguard  for  the  Future   ....  6 

(^V  411.   The  Man  We  Trust 14 

J     IV.  Can  You   Finance   Yourself.'*    ....  21 

^        V.  The  Art  of  Saving  is  the  Art  of  Wise 

^                   Spending 33 

(s^       VI.  Sailing  Under  False   Colors    ....  41 

VII.  The  Ruin  of  Rivalry 49 

VIII.  "A  Home  of  My  Own" 57 

IX.  "He  That  Soweth  Sparingly  Shall  Reap 

Sparingly" 68 

X.  Spendthrifts  of  Time  and  Energy     .      .  78 

XI.  The  Bank-Book  Habit 85 


THRIFT 


THRIFT,    THE    FOUNDATION    OF   ALL    GREATNESS 

The  term  thrift  is  not  only  properly  ap- 
plied to  money  matters,  but  to  everything  in 
life — the  wise  use  of  one's  time,  the  wise  use 
of  one's  ability,  one's  energy,  and  this  means 
prudent  living,  careful  habits  of  life.  Thrift 
is  scientific  management  of  one's  self,  one's 
time,  one's  affairs,  one's  money,  the  wisest  pos- 
sible expenditure  of  what  we  have  of  all  of 
life's  resources. 

Thrift  is  the  friend  of  man,  a  civilization 
builder.  The  practice  of  thrift  gives  an  up- 
ward tendency  to  the  life  of  the  individual, 
and  to  the  life  of  the  nation;  it  sustains  and 
preserves  the  highest  welfare  of  the  race. 

Lord  Rosebery,  ^vi-iting  on  Thrift, — said 
that  all  great  empires  that  were  meant  to 
abide,  were  thrifty. 

1 


2  Thrift 

"Take  the  Roman  Empire,  which  in  some 
respects,  as  a  centered  empire,  was  the  great- 
est in  history,"  he  said;  "it  lay  like  an  iron 
clamp  upon  the  face  of  the  world:  it  was 
founded  on  thrift,  and  when  it  ceased  to  he 
thrifty  it  degenerated  and  came  to  an  end. 
Take  the  case  of  Prussia.  It  began  with  a 
little,  narrow,  strip  of  sand  in  the  North  of 
Europe — 'all  sting,'  as  some  one  said,  from  its 
shape  and  the  fact  that  its  inhabitants  were 
almost  all  armed  men — and  it  was  nurtured 
by  the  thrift  of  Frederick  the  Great's  father, 
who  prepared  a  vast  treasure  and  a  vast 
army  by  an  economy  which  we  should  call 
sordid,  but  which  was  the  weapon  by  which 
the  greatness  of  Prussia  was  founded,  and 
from  which  the  present  German  Empire 
has  risen.  Take  the  case  of  France.  In  my 
humble  belief  France  is  in  reality  the  most 
frugal  of  all  nations.  I  am  not  sure  that  the 
French  always  put  their  money  into  the  sav- 
ings banks,  and,  therefore,  they  do  not  figure 
so  well  in  the  proportion  of  depositors  to  the 
nation  as  some  others  may  do;  but,  after  the 
disastrous  year  of  1870,  when  France  was 
crushed  for  a  time  by  a  foreign  enemy  and  by 


Foundation  of  All  Greatness         3 

a  money  imposition  which  it  seemed  almost 
impossible  that  any  nation  could  pay,  what 
happened?  The  stockings  of  the  French  peas- 
antry, in  which  they  had  kept  their  savings  for 
years,  were  emptied  into  the  chest  of  the  State, 
and  that  huge  indemnity  and  that  war  expense 
was  paid  off  in  a  time  incredibly  short.  The 
other  two  nations  that  I  have  spoken  of  were 
made  by  their  thrift,  but  France  was  saved  by 
her  thrift." 

France,  saved  by  her  thrift  to  save  democ- 
racy! Now  it  is  our  opportunity  and  privi- 
lege, by  her  great  example  to  establish,  both 
in  the  home  and  in  the  nation,  such  thrift  that 
we  can  bountifully  extend  our  aid  to  this  brave 
ally,  let  us,  every  one  of  us,  gladly  do  our  part 
to  sustain  her  at  this  critical  period,  so  that 
she  may  be  preserved  and  her  future  assured 
as  one  of  the  great  nations  of  the  world! 
What  is  saved  now,  is  saved  for  that  coimtry 
and  for  our  own,  for  the  war,  for  the  victory 
of  civilization. 

Thrift  is  not  only  one  of  the  foundation- 
stones  of  a  fortune,  but  also  the  foundation  of 
much  that  is  excellent  in  character.  It  im- 
proves  the   quality   of   the   individual.      The 


4  Thrift 

exercise  of  thrift  has  a  very  healthful  reaction 
upon  all  the  other  faculties.  Thrift  is  an  in- 
dication of  superiority  in  many  ways.  The 
habit  of  thrift  denotes  self-control.  It  is  a 
proof  that  a  man  is  not  a  hopeless  victim  of 
his  appetites,  his  weaknesses,  but  that  he  is 
master  of  himself  as  well  as  of  his  finances. 

We  know  that  a  thrifty  man  will  not  be 
slovenly,  that  he  will  have  a  certain  amount  of 
system  and  order;  that  he  will  be  energetic 
and  industrious,  and  that  he  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  honest  than  the  thriftless  man. 

Thrift  is  an  educator.  A  thrifty  man  thinks 
and  plans.  He  must  have  a  programme.  He 
must  have  a  certain  amount  of  independence. 

If  you  have  cultivated  thrift  it  means  that 
you  have  demonstrated  your  ability  to  control 
your  desires;  that  you  have  begun  to  master 
yourself,  that  you  are  developing  some  of  the 
grandest  human  qualities — self-reliance,  inde- 
pendence, prudence,  foresight;  that  you  are 
developing  your  resourcefulness,  inventive- 
ness. In  other  words,  it  indicates  that  you 
have  a  purpose  in  life,  that  you  are  a  man. 

"Thrift  does  not  require  superior  courage, 
nor  superior  intellect,  nor  any  superhuman 


Foundation  ok  Aij.  Greatness         5 

virtue,"  says  a  writer  on  this  subject.  "It 
merely  requires  common-sense  and  the  power 
of  resisting  selfish  enjoyments.  In  fact, 
thrift  is  merely  common-sense  in  every-day 
working  action.  It  needs  no  fervent  resolu- 
tion, but  only  a  little  patient  self-denial. 
Begin  is  its  device!  The  more  the  habit  of 
thrift  is  practiced  the  easier  it  becomes  and 
the  sooner  it  compensates  the  self-denier  for 
the  sacrifice  which  it  has  imposed." 


II 

A  SAFEGUARD   FOR  THE  FUTURE 

Herbert  Spencer  said  that  the  chief  dif- 
ference between  the  savage  and  the  civihzed 
man  is  in  the  former's  lack  of  foresight.  Not- 
withstanding the  hardships  of  the  primitive 
life,  the  savage  but  slowly  learns  to  practice 
self-denial  in  order  to  provide  for  remote  con- 
tingencies. Given  ample  provision  for  to-day 
he  has  no  anxiety  over  the  uncertainty  of  to- 
morrow. 

It  is  every  one's  duty  to  give  some  thought 
to  the  future,  to  keep  in  mind  a  comfortable 
old  age. 

The  possession  of  money  in  reserve  gives 
an  independence  which  is  an  encouragement 
to  effort,  just  as  it  is  a  safeguard  for  the  fu- 
ture. It  enables  a  man  to  work  with  more 
confidence,  to  look  up  and  not  down,  to  rise 
superior  to  his  surroundings  and  not  be 
dragged  down  by  them. 

When  we  get  a  little  money  ahead  it  arouses 
enthusiasm  to  add  to  it.  It  is  a  perpetual 
suggestion  to  save.    It  makes  it  a  little  easier 

6 


A  Safeguard  for  the  Future         7 

to  say  "No"  when  inclined  to  spend  foolislily 
or  for  things  which  are  really  not  worth  while. 
His  small  savings  have  kept  many  a  young 
man  from  falling  into  temptations  which 
might  have  crippled  or  ruined  him. 

The  little  difference  between  what  we  earn 
and  what  we  spend  is  capital,  an  asset.  Sav- 
ings suggest  to  a  young  couple  just  establish- 
ing a  home  wonderful  possibilities.  JMoney 
saved  means  a  better  home,  more  comforts.  It 
means  a  little  more  reading  matter  and  better 
books  and  periodicals.  It  means  a  possible 
college  course  later  on  for  the  children,  and 
protection  for  our  old  age.  It  means  an  op- 
portunity to  help  others — perhaps  our  coun- 
try— when  the  call  comes.  It  means  sound 
sleep,  less  worry  and  less  anxiety  about  the 
future;  it  means  exemption  from  the  hori-or 
of  horrors,  fear  of  coming  to  want,  anxiety  lest 
those  dear  to  us  may  suffer  for  lack  of  the 
comforts  of  life.  It  may  mean  the  difference 
between  a  skillful  surgeon  or  physician  and  a 
bungler,  in  a  case  of  life  or  death,  when  sick- 
ness enters  our  home. 

I  know  a  very  brilliant  young  man  who 
earned  a  great  deal  of  money,  but  who  felt 


8  Thrift 

such  confidence  in  his  continued  ability  to 
earn  that  he  recklessly  spent  every  cent  as  he 
went  along.  Suddenly  his  young  wife  was 
taken  seriously  ill,  and  in  order  to  save  her  life 
he  was  obliged  to  get  a  noted  surgeon  to  per- 
form a  very  delicate  and  dangerous  operation. 
As  the  surgeon  would  not  operate  until  he 
was  assured  of  his  fee,  the  young  man  was 
compelled  to  borrow  the  necessary  sum,  which 
was  very  large.  His  wife's  life  was  saved,  but 
her  continued  illness  and  the  illness  of  their 
small  children,  together  with  the  wear  and 
anxiety,  so  injured  the  young  man's  health, 
that  his  earning  capacity  was  impaired  for 
many  years.  In  fact,  his  career  was  very  seri- 
ously handicapped,  and  he  and  his  family  suf- 
fered many  privations  for  lack  of  ready  money 
to  tide  them  over  their  difficulties.  This  young 
man  could  easily  have  saved  a  thousand  dol- 
lars in  a  single  year  before  his  wife's  illness, 
but  he  did  not  think  it  necessary,  and  believed 
in  living  up  to  his  income  as  he  went  along. 
He  took  no  thought  for  the  future. 

We  never  can  tell  when  ilhiess,  or  accident, 
may  impair  our  earning  capacity,  or  when 
some  unforeseen  emergency  may  make  an  un- 


A  Safeguard  for  the  Future         9 

expected  call  upon  us.  Tens  of  thousands  of 
mothers  and  children  have  endured  all  sorts 
of  hardships  because  the  father  never  laid  up 
any  money  for  an  emergency,  and  when  it 
came  there  was  no  savings-bank  balance  to 
help  them  over  their  time  of  stress. 

In  an  address  on  "The  Greater  Thrift" 
delivered  before  the  National  Education  As- 
sociation in  New  York,  S.  W.  Strauss,  Presi- 
dent of  the  American  Society  for  Thrift,  made 
this  statement:  "The  records  of  the  Surro- 
gates' Courts  show  that  out  of  one  hundred 
men  who  die,  three  leave  estates  of  $10,000. 
Fifteen  others  leave  estates  from  two  to  ten 
thousand  dollars.  Eighty-two  of  every  hun- 
dred leave  no  income-producing  estates  at  all. 
Thus,  out  of  every  one  hundred  widows,  only 
eighteen  are  left  in  good  or  comfortable  cir- 
cumstances. Forty-seven  others  are  obliged 
to  go  to  work  and  thirty-five  are  left  in  abso- 
lute want." 

"I  have  little  respect  for  the  man  who  does 
not  put  himself  in  a  position  both  to  provide 
and  retain  enough  material  means  to  support 
comfortably  those  who  are  dependent  upon 
him,"  says  Colonel  Koosevelt.     "It  is  every 


10  Thrift 

man's  sacred  duty  to  invest  a  certain  percent- 
age of  his  earnings  for  the  protection  of  those 
depending  upon  him.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
question  of  whether  it  is  a  good  business  in- 
vestment; it  is  a  duty,  a  sacred  duty,  and  he 
will  be  cruelly  unjust  to  those  he  loves  if  he 
allows  them  to  take  a  risk  which  he,  person- 
ally, conscious  of  strength  and  power,  might 
be  justified  himself  in  taking.  Moreover  the 
feeling  that  those  dearest  to  him  are  provided 
for  in  case  of  his  death,  or  any  misfortune 
which  may  come  to  his  business  from  changed 
conditions  or  bad  management,  must  give  an 
immense  satisfaction  to  any  man." 

I  know  of  nothing  else  which  quite  takes  the 
place  of  a  little  ready  money  in  case  of  need; 
something  which  will  be  a  buffer  between  us 
and  the  rough  knocks  of  the  world.  No  one 
who  can  possibly  afford  it  should  be  without 
such  a  buffer. 

Unless  you  are  thrifty  with  your  money, 
with  your  time,  you  are  not  success  organized. 
Of  course,  there  are  many  fine,  lovable  people, 
often  geniuses  in  some  direction,  who  are  to- 
tally lacking  in  the  sense  of  money  values,  and 
spend  money, — when  they  have  it — recklessly. 


A  Safeguard  for  the  Future       11 

But  just  in  so  far  as  tliej'  fail  to  make  wise 
provisions  for  the  morrow,  are  they  ill-hal- 
anced,  and  on  a  par  with  the  primitive  savage. 

People  who  chafe  under  little  privations, 
who  cannot  hear  to  deny  themselves  anything, 
but  who  are  led  by  their  impulses,  who  are 
not  willing  at  times  to  forego  a  little  tem- 
porary pleasure  that  they  may  lay  aside  some- 
thing for  the  future,  will  always  be  handi- 
capped. 

How  many  splendid  opportunities  we  lose 
in  life  for  the  lack  of  a  little  ready  money,  just 
because  we  spent  everything  as  w^e  went  along 
and  laid  aside  nothing!  Get  a  little  money 
ahead,  something  in  the  bank,  put  your  sav- 
ings in  an  insurance  policy  or  some  other  good, 
solid  investment, — there  is  nothing  safer  or 
better  to-day  than  Liberty  Bonds — to  give 
protection  in  case  of  emergency. 

I  know  a  very  brilliant  man  with  remark- 
able earning  capacity,  but  no  saving  ability, 
who  lost  an  opportunity  to  buy  the  original 
Bell  telephone  stock,  before  it  was  watered,  for 
fifty  cents  a  share.  The  opportunity  came  to 
him,  but  he  had  to  say  "No,"  because  he  had 
spent  everything  as  he  went  along.     He  has 


12  Thrift 

earned  a  great  deal  of  money,  but  is  always 
"hard  up,"  and  is  constantly  borrowing  from 
his  friends. 

The  power  of  ready  money  is  usually  not 
half  appreciated  by  young  men  and  young 
women.  This  is  a  land  of  opportunity,  and 
good  chances  are  constantly  coming  to  those 
who  have  the  ready  cash.  How  often  we  hear 
people  plead  as  an  excuse  for  not  seizing  a 
rare  opportunity  for  investment,  that  they  had 
no  ready  money.  There  are  always  plenty  of 
opportunities,  if  one  only  has  a  little  reserve 
laid  by. 

Every  young  person  should  have  foresight 
and  shrewdness  enough  to  protect  some  of 
his  savings,  not  only  to  keep  him  from  any 
possible  want  in  case  of  sickness,  death,  or 
emergency,  but  also  to  enable  him  to  get  a 
start  again,  provided  he  should  meet  unex- 
pected losses.  Without  such  a  reserve  he  may 
be  handicapped  for  years,  especially  if  he  has 
a  family  depending  upon  him. 

A  relatively  small  amount  of  ready  money 
has  saved  many  a  fortune  in  a  case  of  panic 
or  emergency.  There  are  times  in  most 
people's   lives   when   they   must   have   ready 


A  Safeguard  for  the  Future       13 

money,  and  must  have  it  immediately.  Per- 
haps a  thousand  dollars  in  cash  would  make 
all  the  difference  hetween  success  and  failure, 
and  because  they  do  not  have  the  thousand  they 
fail  and  often  become  victims  of  despair. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  get  a  hold  again  after 
you  have  once  lost  your  grip,  especially  in 
middle  life!  Many  employers  look  with  dis- 
trust on  gray  hairs  seeking  a  livelihood.  They 
think  there  is  something  wrong  somewhere 
when  a  man  of  years  has  nothing  between 
himself  and  want. 

To  realize  that  the  best  years,  the  most  pro- 
ductive years  of  one's  life  have  gone  by,  leav- 
ing no  protection  for  old  age,  is  certainly  dis- 
heartening. 

The  world  looks  very  different  to  the  man 
who  has  something  laid  aside  for  an  emer- 
gency, for  sickness,  or  for  the  comforts  of  old 
age,  to  what  it  does  to  the  man  who  has  notli- 
ing  ahead.  The  man  who  saves  is  insuring 
against  all  sorts  of  misfortunes  which  may 
come  to  himself  and  those  dear  to  him  in  the 
future.  He  is  building  around  his  home  a  wall 
of  protection  from  insults,  from  unkind  treat- 
ment, from  cold  selfishness  of  others. 


> 


in 

THE  MAN  WE  TRUST 

Before  people  will  back  a  man  with  capi- 
tal, before  bankers  will  loan  him  money  or 
jobbers  give  him  credit,  they  want  to  know 
what  sort  of  a  man  he  is.  They  will  inquire 
into  his  habits,  for  they  know  these  will  indi- 
cate his  character. 

"Is  he  stable  in  his  character?  Does  he  save 
his  money?  Has  he  formed  habits  of  thrift? 
Can  his  word  be  relied  upon?  Has  he  good 
business  ability?  Is  he  industrious  and  so- 
ber?" These  are  the  first  questions  which  a 
banker  will  ask  in  investigating  a  man  who 
has  applied  for  a  loan.  The  same  thing  is  true 
of  the  jobbers  of  v/hom  he  asks  credit.  Busi- 
ness men  know  that  it  is  pretty  safe  to  trust 
a  young  man  who  has  developed  the  habit  of 
thrift,  who  is  careful  of  his  time,  his  health,  his 
savings. 

The  quality  which  increases  the  confidence 
of  others  in  a  young  man  and  adds  tremen- 

14 


The  Man  We  Trust  1.3 

dously  to  his  credit  is  the  reputation  of  sta- 
bility, of  soundness  of  judgment  in  business 
matters.  If  a  man  is  known  to  be  careless  in 
money  matters;  if  he  is  not  prompt  in  his  pay- 
ments ;  if  he  is  inclined  to  gamble,  and  does  not 
have  much  faculty  for  holding  on  to  his  money, 
he  will  have  very  hard  work  to  get  credit  or  to 
start  in  business  for  himself. 

Every  sound  business  man  knows  that  if  a 
man  cannot  control  himself;  if  he  cannot  resist 
the  temptation  to  spend  every  bit  of  his  in- 
come, perhaps  more,  in  unnecessary  ways,  in 
foolish  indulgences,  he  cannot  be  trusted  with 
money.  The  man  who  cannot  hold  on  to  his 
money,  who  spends  it  rashly,  no  matter  how 
honest  he  may  be  is  always  an  easy  dupe  of 
others,  who  take  advantage  of  him  and  his 
gullibility. 

Nothing  will  do  more  to  help  a  young  man 
to  get  credit  and  gain  for  him  the  assistance 
of  successful  people  than  tlie  reputation  of 
having  the  saving  habit, — of  having  something 
laid  by,  whether  in  government  bonds,  or  in  a 
life  insurance  policy,  or  in  some  other  invest- 
ment.    Such  thrift  gives  him  standing. 

A  prominent  business  man  says:  "Give  me 


16  Thrift 

the  youth  who  saves  to  make  the  man  worth 
while." 

Every  employer  knows  that  the  employee 
who  always  manages  to  save  something  out  of 
his  salary,  has  other  sterling  qualities,  because 
thrift  belongs  to  a  large  and  most  excellent 
family. 

The  man  who  has  a  fair  salary,  but  who 
does  not  lay  up  anything,  is  looked  upon  with 
suspicion,  either  as  to  his  ability  or  his  habits. 
Level-headed  business  men  always  think  well 
of  young  men  who,  no  matter  how  little  they 
earn,  manage  somehow  to  save  part  of  it.  Our 
savings  are  a  power,  not  only  for  the  money 
they  represent,  but  because  they  are  evidences 
of  self-denial,  good  judgment,  thrift. 

The  very  fact  that  a  young  man  has  the 
foresight  to  look  ahead,  to  provide  for  the 
future,  for  others,  or  against  accident,  indi- 
cates that  he  possesses  fine  qualities  of  mind 
and  heart,  and  that  he  is  a  good  citizen  and 
neighbor.  People  have  confidence  in  him. 
The  reputation  of  being  provident  and  a  good 
citizen  means  more  credit,  more  capital,  more 
influence. 

Yet  there  are  young  people  so  foolish  as  to 


The  Max  We  Trust  17 

boast  of  spending  everything  they  can  get,  and 
that  they  are  always  in  debt.  And  there  are 
thousands  of  young  men  receiving  good  sala- 
ries— some  of  them  very  large — who  never 
think  of  laying  up  a  dollar.  They  never  see 
anything  in  their  salaries  but  a  "good  time," 
and  they  never  develop  the  habit  of  thrift. 
You  ask  them  how  they  are  doing,  and  they 
will  say:  "Oh,  just  getting  along,"  "just  mak- 
ing a  living,"  "just  holding  my  own." 

Just  making  a  bare  living  is  not  getting  on, 
and  it  is  not  sufficient  recommendation. 

Bacon  says  that  a  man  who  would  live  well 
within  his  income  ought  not  to  expend  more 
than  one-half,  and  should  save  the  rest. 

I  knew  a  young  man  w^ho  had  received  a 
good  salary  for  many  years,  and  who  had 
never  saved  a  dollar,  but  who  always  intended 
to  save.  Every  year  he  thought  he  was  going 
to  save  several  hundred  dollars  at  least  out  of 
his  salary ;  but  at  the  end  of  the  year  he  always 
found  that  all  of  his  money  was  gone. 

One  day  someone  asked  him  what  lie  had 
done  with  his  salary  the  past  year.  It  set  him 
thinking.  Up  to  that  time  he  liad  never  kept 
3,n  account  of  his  expenditures;  but  he  sat 


18  Thrift 

down  and  began  to  figure  up  his  necessary  ex- 
penses, and  found  that  they  were  not  equal  to 
one-quarter  of  his  salary.  Three-fourths  of 
all  he  earned  had  gone  for  amusement  and 
trifles.  He  resolved  then  and  there  to  save 
half  of  his  salary,  and  at  once  opened  an  ac- 
count in  a  savings  bank  and  deposited  what 
he  had.  He  did  not  make  the  fatal  mistake, 
which  many  make,  of  waiting  until  he  had  a 
large  amount  to  deposit. 

In  a  short  time  this  young  man  was  not  only 
surprised  to  see  how  easy  it  was  to  save  when 
he  had  a  strong  motive  but  he  was  also  sur- 
prised at  the  pleasure  he  had  in  saving,  in 
watching  his  account  grow,  and  in  planning 
for  a  home  of  his  own  and  to  go  into  business 
for  himself.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year  he  had 
a  splendid  balance  in  the  bank,  and  yet  he 
could  not  see  that  he  had  missed  any  pleasure 
Iwhich  would  have  been  of  real  benefit  to  him. 
He  had  cut  off  habits  which  were  injurious  to 
him,  and  which  only  made  him  hate  himself  for 
indulgence  in  them,  and  with  his  increasing 
self-respect,  he  had  formed  the  habit  of  reading 
and  self-improvement.  Everj^body  who  knew 
him  noticed  the  great  change  in  his  appear- 


The  Man  We  Trust  19 

ance,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  was  offered 
a  partnership  in  a  good  business. 

"I  have  often  been  asked,"  says  a  prominent 
business  man,  "to  define  the  true  secret  of  suc- 
cess. It  is  thrift  in  all  its  phases,  and  espe- 
cially thrift  as  applied  to  saving.  Saving  is 
the  first  great  principle  of  success.  It  creates 
independence,  it  gives  a  young  man  standing, 
fills  him  with  vigor,  it  stimulates  him  witli  the 
proper  energj^;  in  fact,  it  brings  to  him  the 
best  part  of  any  success — happiness  and  con- 
tentment." 

No  matter  how  well  you  are  doing  in  your 
business  or  how  large  a  salary  you  are  getting, 
do  not  spend  it  all  as  you  go,  for  your  most 
effective  years  do  not  last  very  long,  and  if 
you  spend  everything  you  earn  in  those  years 
how  can  you  expect  comfort  and  ease  in  old 
age? 

Perhaps  the  great  majority  of  people  do 
their  best  work  and  earn  their  largest  amount 
of  money  during  fifteen  or  twenty  years. 
Your  future  comfort  and  hapi)iness  depend 
on  the  surplus  of  your  most  productive  years. 
Do  not  risk  too  much  on  your  prospects  for  the 
future.     Save  to-day.     Take  no  chances  with 


20  Thrift 

your  home.  Make  a  sure  thing  of  it.  Never 
mind  the  little  sacrifices  you  make  to-day. 
You  can  afford  them  for  the  sake  of  to- 
morrow. 

Make  a  cast-iron  rule  to  lay  aside  a  certain 
percentage  of  your  earnings  every  year.  No 
matter  how  small  it  may  be,  or  if  you  have  to 
go  without  a  great  many  things  that  you  think 
you  need^\put  a  certain  j)ercentage  of  your 
earnings  where  it  will  be  absolutely  safe. 
Thrift  Stamps  are  a  safe  foundation  on  which 
to  build  your  happiness  and  welfare.  You 
will  find  there  is  a  great  satisfaction  not  only 
in  seeing  your  little  savings  grow,  but  in 
knowing  that  such  investment  on  your  part, 
small  as  it  may  be,  is  helping  your  country  to 
bear  its  burdens  at  a  critical  time. 

The  great  majority  of  people  are  incapable 
of  doing  large  things — it  would  be  impossible 
for  them  to  raise  any  considerable  amount  of 
money  at  once — but  the  gi'eat  mass  of  people 
can  put  aside  a  certain  amount  from  their  in- 
comes or  salaries  and  thus  provide  for  the 
future. 


IV 

CAN  YOU  FINANCE  YOURSELF? 

A  MOST  essential  thing  for  every  one  to 
know  is  how  to  finance  oneself — how  to  earn 
and  use  money.  It  does  not  matter  how  much 
you  know  or  how  educated  you  are,  if  you 
cannot  finance  or  support  yourself  there  is 
something  -vvi-ong  in  your  education  and  your 
training;  you  are  deficient,  no  matter  how 
talented  in  other  respects. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  phases  of  Ameri- 
can life  is  that  so  many  people  are  leading 
unhappy,  wretched  lives  because  in  their  youth 
they  were  not  taught  how  to  finance  them- 
selves, or  to  earn  their  own  living.  How  many 
thousands  of  our  yoimg  women  have  been 
placed  at  the  mercy  of  chance,  because  they 
lacked  training  in  this  respect  I  From  child- 
hood the  idea  was  instilled  in  them  that  when 
they  "grew  up"  they  were  expected  to  marry. 
Whether  they  ought  to  marry  or  not,  regard- 
less of  any  special  talent  they  might  have  for 

21 


22  Thrift 

business  or  for  a  profession,  regardless  of 
whether  they  had  a  special  mission  for  the 
world,  they  were  supposed  to  look  out  for  a 
husband.  It  was  not  considered  necessary  or 
desirable  that  the  daughter  should  have  any 
special  training  to  fit  her  for  a  business  or  in- 
dependent career.  Reared  as  a  dependent 
creature  the  girl  of  the  past  was  a  sort  of 
clinging  vine,  brought  up  to  think  that  some- 
one would  take  care  of  her,  so  far  as  her  living 
was  concerned ;  that  her  father  would  look  out 
for  her  until  she  married,  and  then  her  hus- 
band would  do  the  rest. 

Think  of  the  position  of  a  self-respecting 
girl,  with  perhaps  no  desire  or  opportunity  to 
marry,  when  she  reached  maturity  and  felt  that 
her  parents  expected  her  to  relieve  them  of 
her  support  yet  realized  she  was  perfectly 
helpless  to  do  so !  She  had  never  been  taught 
to  earn  her  living,  what  was  she  to  do  under 
such  circumstances?  She  found  herself  grow- 
ing older  and  older,  and  did  not  want  to 
marry,  yet  there  seemed  nothing  else  for  her 
to  do. 

To  those  with  modern  ideas  there  are  plenty 
of  useful  careers  besides  that  of  matrimony 


Can  You  Finance  Yourself?        23 

open  to  the  girl  of  to-day.  The  war  is  pre- 
senting new  and  wonderful  opportunities  to 
women,  and  they  are  developing  marvelous 
resourcefulness,  inventiveness,  vast  ability 
which  they  never  before  dreamed  they  pos- 
sessed. This  new  outlook  for  woman,  with 
her  new  independence,  her  new  self-reliance, 
will  give  her  a  chance  which  she  never  before 
had.  The  educated  girl  of  to-day  knows  she 
is  under  no  obligation  whatever  to  marry 
unless  there  is  a  loud,  immistakable  call  in  her 
nature,  and  of  this  she  should  be  the  judge. 

The  fact  that  they  were  totally  untrained  to 
earn  their  living;  or  at  best  not  sufficiently 
trained  to  make  it  possible  for  them  to  earn 
more  than  a  bare  subsistence,  has  had  a  blight- 
ing effect  on  many  pronu'sing  young  lives. 

There  are  many  women  to-day  who  are  per- 
fectly miserable  because  their  whole  natures 
have  revolted  at  the  idea  of  marriage,  but 
they  were  i:)racticall5^  obliged  to  leave  home, 
and  they  believed  there  was  no  other  door  o])cn 
for  them.  They  had  never  been  trained  in  any 
money-making  profession  that  would  assure 
them  independence.  Is  it  surprising  that  such 
■>vomen  prove  inefficient,  thriftless  wives,  and 


24  Thrift 

when  widowed  are  incapable  of  self-support? 

To  my  mind  it  is  not  only  cruel,  but  really 
a  crime,  to  force  a  girl,  when  she  is  hopelessly 
inefficient,  out  into  the  world  to  earn  her  living, 
or  to  marry  a  man  who  is  totally  unsuited  to 
make  her  happy  or  to  be  the  father  of  her  chil- 
dren, the  head  of  a  family. 

Parents,  make  your  girl  self-reliant,  so  that 
men  will  know  that  she  is  not  dependent  upon 
any  one  of  them  for  support,  that  she.  is  per- 
fectly capable  not  only  of  making  a  living,  but 
of  making  a  career  of  distinction,  because  of 
her  education  and  expert  training  in  some 
particular  line.  INIost  girls  are  just  as  proud 
of  making  a  reputation  along  the  lines  of  their 
ability  as  are  the  men,  and  they  should  have 
the  same  chance  that  their  brothers  have  to 
develop  their  business  possibilities. 

Many  a  cultured  girl  has  been  thro^vn  sud- 
denly on  her  own  resources  by  the  failure  or 
the  death  of  her  father,  and  has  found  herself 
wholly  incapable  of  administering  his  affairs 
or  of  earning  a  living.  Many  women,  when 
their  husbands  die  suddenly,  are  left  with 
business  responsibilities,  wliich  they  are  ut- 
terly unfit  to  assume.    They  are  at  the  mercjyr 


Can  You  Finance  Yourself?        25 

of  designing  lawyers  or  dishonest  business 
men,  who  well  know  that  they  are  mere  baljies 
in  their  hands,  when  it  comes  to  important 
business  transactions. 

Business  talent  is  as  rare  as  a  talent  for 
mathematics.  We  find  boys  and  girls  turned 
out  of  school  and  college  full  of  theories,  and 
all  sorts  of  knowledge  or  smatterings  of 
knowledge,  but  without  the  ability  to  protect 
themselves  from  human  thieves  who  are  try- 
ing to  get  something  for  nothing.  Xo  girl  or 
boy  should  be  allowed  to  graduate,  especially 
from  any  of  the  higher  institutions,  without 
being  well  grounded  in  practical  business 
methods.  Parents  who  send  their  children  out 
in  life  without  seeing  that  they  are  well  versed 
in  ordinary  business  principles  do  them  incal- 
culable injustice. 

Thousands  of  girls  are  sent  out  into  the 
world  with  what  is  called  finished  educations, 
who  cannot  even  give  a  proper  receipt  for 
money,  to  say  nothing  of  tlrawing  a  promis- 
sory note,  a  draft  or  a  bill,  or  understanding 
the  significance  and  importance  of  business 
contracts.  One  such  woman  presented  a  clicck 
for  payment  to  the  paying  teller  of  her  bank. 


26  Thrift 

He  passed  it  back  to  her  with  the  request  that 
she  be  kind  enough  to  indorse  it.  The  lady 
wrote  on  the  back  of  the  check,  "I  have  done 
business  with  this  bank  for  many  years,  and  I 
believe  it  to  be  all  right.  Mrs.  James  B. 
Brown." 

If  every  child  in  America  had  a  thorough 
business  training,  tens  of  thousands  of  pro- 
moters, longheaded,  cunning  schemers,  who 
have  thriven  on  the  people's  ignorance,  would 
be  out  of  an  occupation. 

Since,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  preceding  chap- 
ter, only  eighteen  out  of  every  one  hundred 
widows  are  left  independent,  forty-seven 
being  obliged  to  go  to  work,  and  the  remain- 
ing thirty-five  being  left  in  absolute  want,  it 
is  clear  that  every  woman,  married  or  single, 
should  know  how  to  support  and  finance  her- 
self. The  necessity  for  this  is  made  more  ap- 
parent than  ever  at  this  critical  period  of  the 
world's  history,  when  the  male  element  of  the 
family  is  being  called  from  the  home.  It  is 
as  imperative  to  train  tlie  girl  to  be  self-sup- 
porting as  it  is  to  train  the  boy. 

What  pitiable  cases  we  often  see  of  j^'oung 
wives,  sincere  and  honest,  but  who  had  prac- 


Can  You  Finance  Yourself?        27 

tically  no  training  in  financinp^  themselves  or 
in  the  handling  of  money  previous  to  their 
marriage,  who  innocently  develop  extrava- 
gant habits  in  dress,  and  run  in  debt  for  luxu- 
ries! How  often  we  find  these  young  women 
with  moderately  salaried  husbands  ordering 
expensive  dishes  in  restaurants,  riding  in  taxi- 
cabs,  doing  all  sorts  of  things  which  are  not 
at  all  in  keeping  with  their  husbands'  small 
incomes  I 

Not  long  ago  a  married  woman  told  me  that 
it  had  never  occurred  to  her,  during  the  years 
when  her  father  paid  all  her  bills  with  checks, 
that,  when  she  got  a  home  of  her  own  and  her 
income  was  limited,  if  she  paid  one  hundred 
dollars  for  a  dress,  she  could  not  afford  to  buy 
a  fifty  dollar  hat,  as  she  had  been  accustomed 
to  do  before  marriage.  She  said  slie  had  suf- 
fered terribly  in  readjusting  herself  to  her 
husband's  limited  income,  because  of  her  lack 
of  early  training  in  the  use  and  handling  of 
money.  She  had  been  reared  with  the  idea 
that  whenever  she  wanted  anything,  her  father 
would  pay  for  it.  It  was  several  years  befcjre 
|She  could  seem  to  figure  out  the  proper  pro- 
portion for  her  personal  expenditures.     She 


28  Thrift 

said  she  had  never  before  realized  that  if  she 
spent  her  money  for  one  thing,  she  could  not 
have  it  for  something  else. 

The  wise  expenditure  of  money  incurring 
thrifty  habits  of  living  is  a  matter  in  which 
every  girl  should  be  well  trained  before  she 
leaves  home.  I  know  fathers  who  seem  to 
think  that  they  save  money  by  not  allowing 
their  daughters  to  handle  it.  But  if  a  sensible 
girl  has  learned  the  value  of  each  dollar,  she 
will  be  very  much  more  careful  as  to  how  she 
spends  it. 

Most  girls  are  not  given  an  opportunity  to 
handle  money  until  they  are  mature.  Hence, 
many  never  learn  its  real  value  or  how  to 
spend  it  to  the  best  advantage.  They  are  un- 
developed in  the  ways  of  thrift.  During  her 
school  days,  the  fathei*  not  only  pays  for  the 
daughter's  clothing,  but  the  mother  usually  de- 
cides of  what  the  clothing  shall  consist.  In 
other  words,  instead  of  giving  the  daughter  an 
allowance  while  she  is  in  school,  or  not  in  a 
position  to  earn  anything  to  speak  of,  and 
teaching  her  how  to  use  her  judgment  and 
cultivate  her  taste  in  the  selection  of  whatever 
she  wears,  thus  developing  her  self-reliance. 


WffH.lv^^-&«^ '    -.     ■   /  ,^:-i^^-..- 


i;t. 


)ii.(iii- 


^W'^^-Mji, 


w- 


I  \ 


From  the  drawing  by  Pierre  Moraml  m  i  !••  N  i       . 

Colonel  Jolm  Jacub  Ai>tor. 


JOHN    JACOB    ASTOR. 


CAiN  You  Finance  Yourseli-^        20 

and  makinf^  licr  as  scli'-depciuk'nt  as  possible, 
the  average  girl  is  brought  up  to  lean  upon 
her  parents  in  all  sueh  things,  and  not  being 
accustomed  to  handle  money  of  her  own,  or  to 
keep  accounts,  she  often  goes  to  her  own  liome 
with  very  little  practical  sense  in  money  mat- 
ters. Thousands  of  girls  marry  in  this  weak 
and  helpless  condition,  and  a  great  deal  of  dis- 
cord results  in  the  Jionie,  oftentimes  wrecking 
it.  ITow  can  a  girl  who  has  had  practically  iif> 
training  in  the  handling  of  money,  know  its 
Talue, — all  at  once  become  a  wise  financier 
when  she  is  married? 

When  a  girl  who  has  been  brought  up  in  a 
very  strict  home,  who  has  perha])s  been  over- 
chaperoned,  and  over-protected,  feels  her  new- 
found freedom,  her  new  sense  of  liberty  from 
restraint,  she  is  naturally  led  into  extravagant 
expenditures,  and  is  often  encouraged  ])y  an 
affectionate  indulgent  husband,  who  is  anxious 
to  do  everything  he  can  to  please  her. 

I  know  of  a  pitiable  case  of  tliis  kind  wliere 
the  wife  of  a  young  college  professor  ran  up 
accounts  in  department  stores,  at  livery 
stables,  even  at  florists,  without  realizing  what 
she  was  doing.    Her  new-found  liberty,  away 


30  Thrift 

from  the  restraints  of  an  exacting,  penurious 
father,  meant  license  to  this  young  wife,  and 
she  did  not  know  how  careful  she  would  need 
to  be  in  the  spending  of  her  husband's  small 
salary  of  two  thousand  dollars.  She  did  not 
stop  to  consider  that  her  father  would  no 
longer  send  checks  for  her  purchases,  and  that 
two  thousand  dollars  a  year  did  not  admit  of 
many  theater  or  opera  tickets.  Before  she 
knew  it,  she  had  run  up  large  accounts  and 
not  only  embarrassed  her  husband  for  several 
years,  but  also  suffered  great  humiliation  and 
chagrin  herself. 

When  the  bills  began  to  arrive  and  the 
young  wife  awoke  to  the  full  realization  of  her 
situation,  rather  than  tell  her  husband,  she 
pawned  her  jewelry,  some  of  which  were  her 
wedding  presents.  But  the  husband  found 
that  out,  and  was  not  only  greatly  shocked  at 
the  condition  of  things,  but  was  seriously 
troubled  because  of  his  wife's  deception,  even 
though  not  intentional. 

The  world  demands  that  everj^  individual 
know  how  to  take  care  of  himself,  how  to  be 
independent,  self-reliant,  how  to  finance  him- 
self wisely,  how  to  make  the  most  of  his  in- 


Can  You  Finance  Yourself?        31 

come.  There  is  nothing  more  important  to  a 
human  heing  than  to  be  able  not  only  to  earn 
his  own  living,  but  also  to  know  how  to  use 
his  money  to  the  best  possible  advantage,  for 
on  this  depends  his  power  to  make  himself  in- 
dependent and  consequently  to  do  his  best 
work  in  the  world. 

One  of  the  first  steps  in  financing  yourself 
properly  is  to  keep  a  personal  cash  account. 
This  is  one  of  the  best  educators  and  teachers 
of  economy  and  system.  If  the  habit  is 
formed  when  you  are  young  in  years  it  will 
never  be  broken.  It  will  mean  a  competence 
in  later  life  when  otherwise  there  may  be  none. 

Very  few  young  women  and  girls  use  busi- 
ness methods  in  the  handling  of  their  money. 
Now,  financing  yourself  is  one  of  the  first 
lessons  in  the  science  of  success.  If  you  can- 
not finance  yourself  in  a  level-headed,  wise 
way,  you  certainly  cannot  wisely  manage  your 
own  affairs  or  those  of  another.  Unbusiness- 
like methods,  unwise  liandling  of  money  will 
make  a  bad  impression  upon  your  employer, 
or  your  husband.  If  you  arc  not  thrifty  in 
your  own  affairs,  if  you  arc  not  businesslike 
in  managing  them,   others  will   take   it   for 


32  Thrift 

granted   that   you   will   be   inefficient   in   the 
handling  of  their  affairs. 

However  you  make  your  living,  whether  by 
the  work  of  your  hand  or  of  your  brain,  in  a 
trade  or  in  a  profession,  at  home  or  in  the 
shop,  whether  your  income  be  small  or  large, 
you  will  always  be  placed  at  a  disadvantage, 
unless  you  know  how  to  finance  yourself  suc- 
cessfully. This  is  not  to  be  "close,"  mean  or 
stingy,  but  to  know  how  to  make  the  most  out 
of  your  income ;  not  to  expend  the  margin  you 
should  save  in  silly  extravagances  or  to  make 
foolish  investments.  Let  your  slogan  be,  as 
it  is  with  the  nation, — "Economy." 


THE   ART  OF  SAVING   IS   THE   ART  OF  WISE 
SPENDING 

"Economy  is  not  meanness,  it  is  managing." 

'A.  FEW  years  ago  our  newspapers  gave 
space  to  a  certain  rich  man  who  made  plenty 
of  money  from  his  own  work,  as  well  as  the 
work  of  others,  and  his  very  foolish  way  of 
spending  it.  The  published  report  gave  the 
following  telegram  from  Indianapolis : 

"Frank  Fox,  of  Pittsburgh,  stood  in  the 
Hotel  English  drying  his  face  with  a  $oO  bill. 
He  threw  the  bill  to  the  floor  and  then  pro- 
duced from  a  bundle  under  his  arm  a  handful 
of  fives  and  fifties.  Throwing  them  on  the 
bar,  he  said:  'Bartender,  give  me  a  drink, 
quick,  or  I  will  buy  this  hotel  and  have  you 
fired.' " 

This  man's  destiny  may  easily  be  imagined. 
His  previous  history  I  know  nothing  about, 
except  that  his  fortune  was  amassed  by  his 

33 


34  Thrift 

energy.  For  him  to  achieve  such  wealth  a 
certain  amount  of  economy  must  have  been 
necessary  on  his  part  as  well  as  that  of  others. 
But  that  he  never  learned  the  true  meaning 
of  thrift  is  certain,  for  thrift  teaches  how  to 
spend  as  well  as  how  to  save.  Many  people 
have  accumulated  money  who  do  not  know 
how  to  spend  it  wisely. 

Only  a  little  while  ago  I  heard  of  a  young 
man  who  was  left  a  large  fortune,  and  who 
was  so  intoxicated  with  the  foolish  idea  that 
he  was  going  to  be  a  great  financier,  that  he 
invested  right  and  left  in  all  sorts  of  securi- 
ties. He  became  so  entangled  in  the  schemes 
of  wily  promoters,  who  were  quick  to  discover 
his  gullibility,  that,  before  he  knew  it,  he  had 
run  through  his  entire  fortune.  Yet  he  really 
thought  he  was  making  money  until  the  crash 
came.  When  he  failed,  it  was  found  that, 
in  the  entire  list  of  his  securities  there  was 
scarcely  anything  of  real  value.  There  was 
hardly  a  security  in  which  any  level-headed 
business  man  would  have  risked  a  dollar. 

Most  young  men  have  an  ambition  to  make 
money.  There  is  a  personal  pride  in  it.  It 
touches   their   vanity.      They   think   there   is 


Saving  is  the  Art  of  Wise  Spending     35 

something  the  matter  with  a  young  man  who 
cannot  make  money.  The  motive  is  so  strong 
for  money-making  that  they  make  a  strenuous 
endeavor  to  get  it;  but  do  not  make  an  equal 
effort  to  retain  it,  there  being  a  thousand  and 
one  temptations  trying  to  induce  them  to  give 
it  up. 

A  self-made  millionaire  tells  me  that  not 
one  out  of  a  himdred  of  those  who  make  money 
in  New  York  can  keep  it.  While  this  may 
be  exaggerated,  we  all  know  that  compara- 
tively few  are  able  to  keep  what  they  make. 
The  inducements  to  part  with  money  are  very 
alluring  to  those  who  are  not  strongly  in- 
trenched in  self-control. 

A  well-known  victim  of  thriftlessness  is 
the  amiable,  easy-going,  large-hearted,  liberal 
man.  He  is  always  ready  to  pay  for  the  lunch, 
for  the  dinner,  for  the  drinks.  His  bump  of 
generosity  is  so  strongly  developed,  tliat  every- 
thing goes  as  fast  as  he  gets  it.  He  cannot 
seem  to  hold  on  to  money. 

This  type  of  a  man  often  has  the  best  in- 
tentions, fine  impulses,  yet  he  absolutely  ruins 
those  dependent  upon  hun,  as  well  as  himself, 
by  not  providing  for  their  future.     Almost 


36  Thrift 

anyone  can  get  money  from  htm,  if  he  has 
any,  by  asking.  If  he  does  not  happen  to 
have  it,  he  will  often  borrow  it  for  his  friends. 
I  know  a  man  of  this  sort,  who,  but  for  this 
one  defect,  would  probably  have  been  a  very 
great  success.  He  has  many  warm  friends; 
everybody  who  knows  him  loves  him,  yet  he 
has  not  been  able  to  get  capital  ahead  and  his 
family,  those  really  nearest  and  dearest  to  him, 
are  the  victims  of  his  prodigality.  Such  a 
man  might  well  take  a  lesson  from  Goldsmith, 
who  wrote: 

"I  had  learned  from  books  to  be  disinter- 
ested and  generous  before  I  was  taught  from 
experience  the  necessity  of  being  prudent 
....  Often  by  being,  even  with  my  nar- 
row finances,  charitable  to  excess,  I  forgot  the 
rules  of  justice  and  placed  myself  in  the  very 
situation  of  the  wretch  who  thanked  me  for 
my  bounty."  And  this  man,  who  could  refuse 
no  indulgences  either  to  himself  or  others,  ad- 
monished his  brother  to  teach  his  son  thrift 
and  economy.  "Let  his  poor  wandering 
uncle's  example  be  placed  before  his  eyes." 

Everyone  should  be  taught  the  value  of 
money  and  how  to  spend  it  wisely.    If  people 


Saving  is  the  Art  of  Wise  Spending     37 

do  not  acquire  this  knowledge  in  youth,  they 
seldom  later  in  life  do  so. 

There  is  no  one  human  faculty  neglected 
more  by  the  common  people  than  prudence. 
Men  reach  ahead  and  make  money,  but  after 
they  get  it,  most  of  them  seem  powerless  to 
keep  it.  It  slips  through  their  fingers,  in  an 
incredible  manner,  in  all  sorts  of  foolish  ways. 

The  art  of  saving  is  essentially  the  art  of 
wise  spending.  Oftentimes  what  seems  like 
extravagance  is  the  greatest  possible  economy. 
There  are  many  families,  especially  in  smaller 
towns  and  in  the  country,  who  own  automobiles 
but  who  have  no  bathtubs  in  their  homes,  and 
consider  the  latter  expensive  luxuries. 

We  would  not  discourage  people  from  o^vn- 
ing  automobiles,  because  they  are  a  precious 
boon  to  the  American  home,  bringing  relief 
to  the  monotonous  existence  of  women  and 
children,  and  health,  variety,  and  joy  to  vast 
midtitudes  of  people  heretofore  deprived  of 
these  blessings ;  but  cleanliness  is  not  only  next 
to  godliness,  it  is  godliness,  and  most  of  us 
consider  a  bathtub  an  important  adjunct  to 
cleanliness.  It  took  civilization  many  centu- 
ries to  arrive  at  the  bathtub  as  a  necessity  and 


38  Thrift 

luxury.  Most  of  us  are  finding  that  the  daily- 
bath  is  a  wonderful  health  and  efficiency  pro- 
moter and  life  prolonger. 

The  great  thing  in  making  expenditures  is 
to  spend  upward,  to  invest  in  oneself.  Do  not 
be  content  to  wear  silks  and  diamonds  on  the 
body,  to  ride  around  in  your  limousine,  and  to 
dress  the  mind  in  calico  and  the  character  in 
rags.  Let  self-improvement,  self-culture,  a 
healthy  mind,  a  fine  personalitj^  be  your  richest 
dress.  Spend  your  money  and  time  on  things 
which  endure.  Spend  them  in  any  way  that 
will  make  you  a  larger,  grander,  truer  man 
or  woman.  There  is  infinite  satisfaction  in 
spending  for  the  higher  instead  of  the  lower, 
in  self-investment,  in  self-improvement. 

Invest  in  the  best  things.  It  is  spending 
upward,  living  upward,  dwelling  in  honesty, 
in  simplicity,  living  the  life  that  is  worth  while, 
the  real  life,  the  sincere  life,  the  genuine  life, 
that  will  give  the  greatest  satisfaction. 

There  are  people  who  have  very  small  in- 
comes, and  yet  they  spend  it  in  all  sorts  of 
foolish  ways.  They  will  take  their  last  penny 
to  buy  expensive  b;iuc-a-brac  and  articles  of 
dress,  which  only  the  well-to-do  could  afford  to 


Saving  is  the  Art  of  Wise  Spending     39 

have,  and  then  they  suffer  for  the  real  neces- 
saries of  Hfe. 

I  know  a  most  excellent  woman  who  was 
brought  up  in  luxury  without  learning  the 
value  of  things,  and  who  is  now  poor.  Quite 
recently  she  would  go  to  market  and  buy  the 
greatest  variety  of  eatables  for  the  table,  know- 
ing perfectly  well  that  she  would  be  obliged 
to  go  without  necessary  articles  of  clothing  in 
order  to  cover  the  extravagance.  She  consid- 
ers it  deplorable  not  to  have  a  great  quantity 
and  a  great  variety  of  food  on  the  table.  This 
housekeeper,  as  well  as  many  others  who  here- 
tofore spent  recklessly  for  foodstuffs  and  lux- 
uries, are  now  taking  lessons  in  thrift  from 
our  wise  Government. 

Most  people  do  not  take  into  consideration 
the  tremendous  inducements  that  are  all  the 
time  at  work  trying  to  get  their  money  away 
from  them.  Scores  of  fancied  wants  are  tug- 
ging away  at  the  pocketbook  all  the  time,  and 
unless  we  are  well-grounded  in  the  principles 
of  self-control  and  caution  and  prudence,  un- 
less we  develop  good  judgment,  the  money 
will  slip  away  from  us. 

There  are  multitudes  of  people  to-day  in 


40  Thrift 

the  great  failure  army,  in  our  poorhouses,  or 
being  helped  by  the  charitable  associations, 
who  would  have  been  fairly  independent  to- 
day had  they  learned  the  art  of  wise  spending. 
"A  penny  saved  instead  of  a  penny  properly 
spent  is  a  penny  wasted,"  we  are  told.  "Why 
not  remember  the  parable  of  the  talents  and 
learn  wisdom  from  it?" 


VI 

SAILING    UNDER   FALSE   COLORS 

Many  people  who  are  honest  in  their  busi- 
ness dealings  are  dishonest  in  their  social  ap- 
pearances. They  wear  all  sorts  of  lies,  act  all 
sorts  of  lies,  in  order  to  deceive  others  in  re- 
gard to  their  rank  in  society.  In  cities  we 
often  see  houses  built  with  just  a  thin  layer 
of  brown-stone  front,  while  the  rest  is  made 
of  old  second-hand  bricks — anything  to  fill  in 
with — the  type  of  architecture  that  has  been 
called  Queen  Anne  in  front  and  Mary  Ann 
in  the  back. 

We  put  plate  glass  in  our  front  windows 
and  display  our  costlj^  furnishings  in  the  front 
of  the  house,  but  we  often  find  all  sorts  of 
cheap,  shabby,  shoddy  things  in  the  rear.  Our 
characters  in  these  days  are  much  like  our 
houses.  We  put  our  best  selves  before  the 
public.  We  are  not  genuine  through  and 
through. 

41 


42  Thrift 

Keeping  up  false  appearances,  living  a  false 
life,  is  most  demoralizing.  Trying  to  make 
people  think  you  are  better  off  than  you  really 
are  acts  as  a  boomerang  which  strikes  back 
with  a  fatal  rebound. 

A  New  York  woman  of  high  social  ambi- 
tions not  long  ago  lost  her  home  and  all  her 
property  in  her  efforts  to  introduce  her  daugh- 
ters into  fashionable  society.  The  family  could 
have  lived  in  comfort  on  their  modest  income, 
had  not  the  mother  gone  far  bej^ond  their 
means  in  her  eagerness  to  force  her  daughters 
into  the  society  of  those  who  were  socially  far 
above  them  in  the  matter  of  wealth.  She  spent 
a  great  deal  of  money  in  giving  smart  enter- 
tainments in  order  to  show  her  girls  off  to  the 
best  advantage.  Thousands  of  dollars  were 
squandered  in  buying  beautiful  gowns,  hats, 
laces,  and  all  sorts  of  expensive  finery  for  them, 
so  that  they  might  shine  as  brilliantly  as  other 
young  ladies  who  had  a  hundred  times  their 
financial  means.  In  an  insane  attempt  to  keep 
up  appearances  far  beyond  her  income,  and 
to  secure,  as  she  hoped,  wealthy  husbands  for 
her  daughters,  she  became  hopelessly  entan- 
gled in  debt,  and  was  forced  into  bankruptcy, 


Sailing  Under  False  Colors         43 

Tiiid  the  daugliters,  instead  of  winnino-  the 
prizes  their  mother  sought,  are  mortified  and 
chagrined  to  find  themselves  now  without  even 
a  home. 

Mothers  in  ordinary  circumstances  often 
make  tremendous  efforts  to  marry  their  daugli- 
ters to  rich  men,  little  realizing  that  they  are 
thus  making  their  girls  dissatisfied  with  their 
humhle  surroundings,  and  leading  them  to 
think  their  modest  home  a  bore,  a  place  to  be 
shunned  as  much  as  possible.  They  little 
know  that  this  catering  to  vanity  is  wliat  ruins 
so  many  girls  and  makes  selfish,  discontented, 
thriftless  wives  of  them. 

Trying  to  put  up  a  good  front,  to  keep  up 
appearances  which  we  cannot  afford,  has  cast 
a  gloom  of  unhappiness  and  misery  over  thou- 
sands of  homes  which  but  for  envj^  but  for 
silly  false  jDride,  might  have  been  very  happy 
homes.  There  is  more  misery  and  discontent 
among  the  many  people  who  occupy  boxes 
and  exj^ensive  seats  at  the  theater  and  the 
opera  than  among  those  who  cannot  afford  a 
seat  at  all,  but  stand  up  in  the  rear. 

I  know  of  women  who  enjoy  life  immensely 
who  cannot  afford  even  the  cheapest  seats  at 


44  Thrift 

the  opera,  but  they  gladly  stand,  and  return 
home  delighted,  radiant  with  happiness,  while 
one  often  sees  other  women,  in  the  most  ex- 
pensive boxes,  whose  faces  are  the  bulletin 
boards  that  show  their  discontent. 

Would  you  not  rather  go  to  the  theater  in 
ordinary  clothes  and  in  a  street-car  than  to 
be  fashionably  attired,  go  in  a  limousine,  and 
sit  in  a  box  and  worry  all  the  evening  because 
you  could  not  afford  it,  and  wondered  how  you 
were  going  to  pay  your  bills? 

Who  can  estimate  the  suffering,  the  human 
tragedies  that  result  from  this  everlasting 
strain  of  trying  to  keep  up  appearances,  of 
living  beyond  one's  means?  There  are  plenty 
of  people  everywhere  to-day  who  do  not  have 
enough  to  eat,  and  who  practice  all  sorts  of 
pinching  economy  at  home  for  the  sake  of 
keeping  up  appearances  in  society. 

What  tremendous  strides  we  could  make  in 
things  that  really  count  w^ere  the  energ}^  ex- 
pended in  straining  to  keep  up  appearances 
spent  in  improving  ourselves,  in  genuine  self- 
culture,  in  man  building,  in  woman  building! 

Why  should  it  require  so  much  courage  to 
live  the  life  we  can  afford,  to  be  genume,  true, 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN 


Sailing  Under  False  Colors         45 

and  never  to  fear  what  our  neighbors  think? 
Even  those  wlio  are  wealthy  will  think  more 
of  us  for  this  independence. 

Many  peoj^le  shorten  their  lives  in  over- 
working, in  plodding  along  without  vacations 
or  change,  struggling  to  keep  up  appearances, 
to  satisfy  others'  ideas  of  what  they  ought  to 
do  and  ought  to  have. 

I  have  watched  young  people  who  live  this 
sort  of  a  life,  and  it  is  a  rare  thing  that  any 
of  them  turn  out  well.  Their  weakness,  the 
tendency  for  show,  grows  upon  them,  and 
when  they  once  get  a  taste  of  what  they  call 
the  "good  things  of  life,"  the  luxuries,  they 
develop  a  dissatisfaction  for  their  humble 
homes.  They  immediately  think  they  were 
born  out  of  their  sphere ;  that  it  is  a  shame  for 
people  with  a  taste  for  luxuries  to  be  poor. 
They  never  think  they  should  put  forth  any 
honest  efforts  to  bring  about  a  more  prosper- 
ous condition. 

The  fact  is,  that  extravagant  liabits  are 
incompatible  with  the  thrift  necessary  for  suc- 
cess in  any  career.  There  must  be  an  under- 
lying, clean-cut  thrift  in  the  nature,  a  disposi- 
tion to  make  the  most  of  everything,  and  to 


46  Thrift 

make  every  dollar  go  as  far  as  possible,  and 
to  save  just  as  much  as  possible  without  pinch- 
ing in  one's  comforts  or  being  mean. 

The  people  v^^ho  plunge  into  extravagance  to 
keep  pace  with  families  of  the  rich  overlook 
the  fact  that  behind  every  honest  fortune  lies 
thrift.  If  we  investigate,  we  will  generally 
find  that  the  antecedents  of  these  rich  people 
worked  hard,  lived  frugally,  practiced  econ- 
omy to  lay  the  f ovmdation  of  the  fortune. 

Our  real  wants  are  very  simple.  We  could 
supply  them  all  by  working  a  very  small  part 
of  our  time ;  but  it  is  the  things  demanded  for 
others'  eyes  that  are  so  expensive,  that  cost 
our  life-blood,  that  sap  our  energy,  that  cause 
the  tremendous  life  strain,  the  nervous  pros- 
tration, the  paralysis,  the  premature  old  age. 

Ah!  what  tyrants  others'  eyes  are!  How 
we  wince  under  their  glance!  What  a  rare 
thing  it  is  to  find  a  person  who  is  large  enough 
and  free  enough  to  be  really  natural. 

How  many  people  live  and  dress  and  pose 
and  endure  all  sorts  of  inconveniences  and 
slavery  just  to  impress  their  neighbors!  Do 
what  they  will,  they  cannot  get  away  from 
others'  eyes.     They  have  costly  draperies  at 


Sailing  Under  False  Colors         47 

their  windows  while  behind  them  are  filth  and 
disorder  and  broken-down  furniture. 

Most  of  us  are  always  posing,  acting,  never 
quite  ourselves.  We  cannot  get  rid  of  the 
consciousness  that  others  are  looking  at  us 
and  that  we  must  put  up  a  good  front.  The 
suit,  the  hat  must  be  discarded,  not  because 
they  are  badly  worn,  but  because  others  will 
think  it  strange  that  we  do  not  change  them. 
It  is  sad  to  think  that  even  while  the  world 
lies  bleeding,  such  frivolity  exists! 

Society  is  demoralized  when  the  people  live 
far  beyond  their  means,  when  they  sail  under 
false  colors,  many  of  them  cursed  by  debt, 
often  resorting  to  methods  bordering  on  crim- 
inality in  order  to  keep  up  the  miserable  de- 
ceit of  appearing  richer  than  they  are. 

"The  standard  of  living  among  the  rich  has 
been  raised  to  an  excessive  degree,  and  those 
who  would  like  to  be  thought  rich  try  to  fol- 
low the  lead  set  by  the  big  financiers  and  min- 
ing magnates  who  are  to  our  day  wliat  tlie 
Indian  nabobs  were  to  the  England  of  George 
III,"  says  a  writer.  "People  who  live  beyond 
their  meam  are  tempted  to  speculate,  and  the 
bankruptcy  records  show  the  inevitable  result. 


48  Theift 

A  course  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking 
would  be  good  for  the  morals  of  society,  and 
good  for  legitimate  trade." 

Why  not  get  down  to  realities  by  living  the 
simple  life,  the  natural  life,  by  throwing  off 
masks  and  being  what  you  seem?  This  con- 
stant straining  to  appear  what  you  are  not, 
this  building  up  a  superficial  character,  keep- 
ing up  a  deceitful  appearance,  will  honey- 
comb the  life  with  fraud  and  leave  nothing 
but  dissatisfaction  behind. 

Do  not  be  afraid  to  decline  to  do  what  you 
cannot  afford.  Dare  to  say  "No"  with  em- 
phasis, to  be  yourself.  Be  content  to  let 
others  make  fools  of  themselves,  if  they  will. 


VII 

THE    RUIN    OF    RIVALRY 

Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  New  York  business 
man  with  a  small  income  say:  "I  have  no  idea 
oS  taking  a  back  seat  when  it  comes  to  putting 
up  a  good  front."  He  said  that  his  income 
would  not  warrant  his  keeping  an  automobile, 
but  he  was  obliged  to  have  one  because  his 
neighbors  and  others  had  them,  and  he  did  not 
propose  to  be  outdone  by  them;  that  he  did 
not  want  his  children  humiliated  because  they 
could  not  afford  what  others  had,  and  so  he 
ran  into  a  debt  which  has  made  him  a  slave 
for  years. 

There  are  thousands  of  people  striving  and 
struggling  in  the  most  imnatural  way  to  get 
along  in  New  York  and  other  large  cities,  wlio 
are  desperately  unhappy  because  of  the  con- 
trast between  their  condition  and  that  of  those 
whom  they  envy.  I  do  not  believe  there  is 
any  place  in  the  world  where  envy  plays  such 
a  prominent  part  as  in  a  great  city. 

49 


50  Thrift 

So  many  people  seem  to  think  that  it  is  al- 
most a  disgrace  not  to  have  what  other  people 
whom  they  know  have.  If  others  have  an  au- 
tomobile, they  must  have  one,  whether  they 
can  afford  it  or  not.  Daughters  of  men  in 
narrow  circimistances  think  they  must  have 
the  same  beautiful  things  to  wear  as  their 
friends  have  who  may  be  infinitely  better  able 
to  afford  them.  I  know  young  people  who  say 
they  would  rather  stay  at  home  than  go  any- 
where unless  they  can  dress  as  others  do  and 
go  as  others  go. 

A  young  man  who  received  twenty  dollars  a 
week  told  me  that  it  cost  him  fifteen  dollars 
one  evening  to  take  a  young  woman  to  the 
opera  and  to  supper  afterward.  Another 
young  fellow,  who  only  earned  eight  dollars  a 
week,  told  me  that  he  frequently  spent  nearly 
half  that  amount  in  taking  a  young  woman  to 
the  theater.  Because  her  other  friends  could 
do  this,  he  felt  he  must.  Everywhere  we  see 
people  in  ordinary  circumstances  aping  the 
rich. 

Many  of  us  are  such  slaves  to  this  imitation 
of  others  that  we  have  no  time  for  friendships, 
no  time  for  social  life,  no  time  for  true  enjoy- 


The  Ruin  of  Rivalry  51 

merit,  for  doing  the  things  that  are  really 
worth  while. 

I  know  a  mother  who  is  not  very  ambitious 
for  herself,  and  she  is  not  particularly  morti- 
fied or  very  greatly  inconvenienced  personally 
by  her  poverty,  but  she  is  very  much  dis- 
tressed and  humiliated  on  her  daughter's  ac- 
count. She  grieves  that  her  child  cannot  have 
what  other  girls  whom  she  knows  have,  that 
she  must  ride  on  the  street-car  or  walk  when 
other  girls  have  maids  to  attend  them,  and 
luxurious  automobiles  to  take  them  wherever 
they  wish  to  go. 

She  says  it  breaks  her  heart  to  think  that 
her  attractive  daughter  has  to  wear  cheap,  or- 
dinary clothing,  when  other  girls  not  half  as 
attractive  or  deserving  dress  in  the  most  ex- 
travagant manner  and  wear  expensive  jewel- 
ry, and  that  there  is  something  cruelly  wrong 
with  a  society  which  forces  her  daughter  to 
work  in  an  office  all  day,  instead  of  living  a 
life  of  ease,  with  servants  and  money  at  her 
command. 

This  woman  has  so  poisoned  her  daughter's 
mind  in  talking  before  her  in  this  way,  in 
bringing  her  up  to  despise  her  humble  home 


52  Thrift 

and  surroundings,  that  the  girl  does  not  appre- 
ciate anything  she  has.  Like  her  mother,  she 
is  always  comparing  her  limited  condition  with 
the  luxurious  state  of  others.  The  mother 
has  filled  the  girl's  head  full  of  nonsense  about 
making  a  supreme  effort  to  marry  money,  and 
in  this  way  help  to  replenish  the  depleted 
family  treasury.  She  tells  her  that  no  matter 
how  honest  or  industrious  a  young  man  may 
be,  if  he  has  not  money,  if  he  cannot  support 
a  wife  in  luxury,  she  should  have  nothing  to 
do  with  him.  In  her  desperate  efforts  to 
marry  her  daughter  to  somebody  with  money, 
I  doubt  very  much  whether  she  would  ask 
any  questions  about  a  wealthy  suitor's  char- 
acter. 

Instead  of  being  buoyant,  cheerful,  happy, 
optimistic,  as  all  youth  naturally  are,  the 
daughter  is  cynical,  sarcastic  about  everything, 
always  complaining  of  her  hard  lot.  She 
never  seems  to  enjoy  an}i;hing  she  has.  It  is 
always  cheap  and  dowdy,  never  looks  right  or 
sets  right.  Her  hat  is  a  "cheap John  thing"; 
she  "hates  it." 

Happiness  is  a  mental  attitude,  it  is  the 
condition  of  the  mind,  not  the  condition  of  the 


The  Ruin  of  Rivalry  .53 

pocketbook,  and  Nature  has  made  it  further 
impossible  for  happiness  to  live  in  complex, 
complicated,  envious  conditions. 

If  you  are  made  of  the  right  kind  of  metal 
you  will  not  allow  other  people  to  destroy 
your  peace  of  mind  or  j^our  happiness.  It  is 
an  evidence  of  weakness  if  you  do;  it  shows 
that  you  have  a  foolish  vanity. 

Gratification,  satisfaction  of  our  selfish 
cravings,  only  increases  our  soul  hunger. 
"Desire  is  as  insatiable  as  its  demands  are 
attended  to." 

Human  beings  starve  and  pinch  their  lives 
and  stunt  their  growth  by  their  wrong  atti- 
tude toward  life.  They  kill  every  joy  and 
blight  their  happiness  by  their  own  envy,  jeal- 
ousy, and  false  ambition. 

It  is  not  so  much  our  lack  of  comforts,  or 
of  luxuries,  as  our  envy,  our  selfishness,  our 
false  standards  that  make  us  imhappy. 

Many  of  us  miss  the  joys  that  might  be  ours 
by  keeping  our  eyes  fixed  on  those  of  other 
people.  No  one  can  enjoy  his  own  opportuni- 
ties for  happiness  while  he  is  envious  of  an- 
other's. We  lose  a  great  deal  of  the  joy  of 
living  by  not  cheerfully  accepting  the  small 


54  Thrift 

pleasures  that  come  to  us  every  day,  instead  of 
longing  and  wishing  for  what  belongs  to 
others. 

Why  not  take  pleasure  in  our  own  modest 
car,  and  not  long  for  the  luxurious  "Twin- Six" 
that  some  one  else  owns?  Why  let  the  edge 
be  taken  off  the  enjoyment  of  our  own  little 
home  watching  the  palatial  residence  of  our 
neighbor?  Let  us  try  to  get  satisfaction  out 
of  a  trolley  ride  into  the  country  or  a  sail  on 
a  river  steamer,  and  not  envy  the  man  who 
can  enjoy  the  luxury  of  his  own  touring  car 
or  yacht.  Usually  you  will  find  he  or  some 
one  belonging  to  him  has  labored  hard  for 
these  enjoyments. 

"Many  people  envy  the  possessions  of  the 
rich,"  says  Samuel  Smiles,  "but  will  not  pass 
through  the  risks,  the  fatigues,  or  the  dangers 
of  acquiring  them.  It  is  related  of  the  Duke 
of  Dantzig  that  an  old  comrade,  w^hom"  he  had 
not  seen  for  many  years,  called  upon  him  at 
his  hotel  in  Paris,  and  seemed  amazed  at  the 
luxury  of  his  apartments,  the  richness  of  his 
furniture,  and  the  magnificence  of  his  gar- 
dens. The  duke,  supposing  that  he  saw  in  his 
old  comrade's  face  a  feeling  of  jealousy,  said 


The  Ruin  of  Rivalry  55 

to  him  bluntly,  'You  may  have  all  that  you 
see  before  you,  on  one  condition.'  'What  is 
that?'  said  his  friend.  'It  is  that  you  will 
place  yourself  twenty  paces  off,  and  let  me 
fire  at  you  with  a  musket  a  hundred  times.' 
'I  will  certainly  not  accept  your  offer  at  that 
price.'  'Well,'  replied  the  marshal,  'to  gain 
all  that  you  see  before  you,  I  have  faced  more 
than  a  thousand  gunshots,  fired  at  not  more 
than  ten  paces  off.'  " 

A  girl  arrested  in  New  York  for  vagrancy 
was  asked  by  a  magistrate  what  caused  her 
to  drift  into  that  sort  of  a  life.  She  said: 
"I  wanted  to  dress  like  other  girls,  and  I 
couldn't." 

A  New  York  woman  in  the  ante-bellum 
days  boasted  that  she  spent  two  liLindred  thou- 
sand dollars  a  year  for  dress.  She  said  she 
had  many  dresses  every  year  that  cost  a  thou- 
sand dollars  or  more,  that  her  shoes  cost  her 
fifty  dollars  a  pair,  the  leather  being  all  im- 
ported and  dyed  to  match  each  one  of  her 
dresses.  She  justified  this  extravagance  on 
the  ground  that  it  gave  employment  to  a  great 
many  people. 

This  woman  perhaps  never  stopped  to  think 


56  Thrift 

of  the  demoralizing  influence  of  her  example 
upon  poor  girls.  How  many  are  tempted  into 
extravagance  which  they  cannot  afford,  make 
slaves  of  themselves  or  are  tempted  into  im- 
moral living  in  trying  to  ape  people  of  her 
type? 

No  greater  delusion  ever  crept  into  a  rich 
woman's  head  than  that  wanton  extravagance 
is  justified  on  the  ground  that  it  gives  em- 
ployment. Thousands  of  girls  are  ruined 
every  year  because  of  the  demoralizing  influ- 
ence of  just  such  examples;  besides  the  multi- 
tudes that  are  rendered  unliappy  because  they 
cannot  obtain  those  things. 

'No  rich  person  has  a  right  to  set  an  exam- 
ple which  will  demoralize  others.  Our  rights 
to  extravagance  cease  when  they  injure  others. 
No  woman  has  a  right  to  flaunt  her  riches  in 
the  faces  of  poor  girls,  who  are  made  miser- 
able by  her  foolish,  extravagant  example. 


VIII 


'a  home  of  my  own" 


In  the  heart  of  the  average  young  person 
lies  the  desire  to  possess  a  home  of  his  o\vn. 
Unfortunately,  most  people  fail  to  see  the 
obstacles  that  lie  in  the  way  of  their  achieving 
this  worthy  desire.  "A  home  of  my  o^vnl" 
Around  this  cluster  many  sweet  dreams  of 
fireside  joys,  but  we  start  wrong  in  our  quest. 

With  small  salaries  and  limited  incomes, 
how  often  young  men  spend  extravagantly  in 
their  courting  days!  In  their  youthful  ardor 
they  send  the  object  of  their  devotion  expen- 
sive bonbons,  costly  flowers  in  winter,  and 
other  luxuries  out  of  season;  and,  without  re- 
gard to  expense,  hire  automobiles  for  theater 
and  opera  when  lower-priced  vehicles  would 
answer.  All  of  these  things  keep  back  the 
young  man  who  wants  to  establisli  a  liome  of 
his  own.  He  is  not  starting  right.  It  gives 
a  wrong  impression  to  his  future  wife.     Ex- 

57 


58  Thrift 

pensive  bonbons  and  flowers  and  costly  amuse- 
ments will  not  make  a  sensible  girl  think  any 
more  of  you,  my  friend;  she  will  often  think 
less  of  you,  especially  if  she  knows,  or  even 
suspects,  that  you  can't  afford  the  outlay.  It 
does  not  bespeak  a  level  head,  good  judgment, 
sound  financial  -wisdom  on  your  part. 

I  have  often  heard  girls  say  that  they  were 
sorry  their  men  friends  spent  so  much  money 
on  them,  because  they  knew  that  they  could 
not  afford  it ;  but  they  did  not  like  to  say  this 
to  them.  Some  years  ago  I  knew  a  young 
man,  earning  u  salary  of  about  twelve  dollars 
a  week,  who  would  buy  expensive  roses  for  a 
young  woman  he  admired,  and  go  without  his 
lunches  in  order  to  save  for  them.  I  have 
known  him,  when  the  object  of  his  devotion 
was  traveling,  to  telegraph  to  a  distant  city  to 
a  florist  to  deliver  flowers  at  her  hotel !  Not- 
withstanding this  foolish  expenditure,  he  failed 
to  make  the  impression  upon  the  young 
woman  that  he  thought  he  would  make.  She 
found  that  he  was  not  well-balanced,  and, 
after  he  had  expended  a  great  deal  of  money 
and  seriously  embarrassed  himself  financially 
trying  to  win  her,  she  refused  to  marry  him. 


"A  Home  of  My  Own"  50 

If  lie  had  been  more  sensible  in  his  courtship 
he  might  have  been  successful,  but  the  young 
woman  knew  he  could  not  afford  the  extrava- 
gant things  he  did  and  she  lost  faith  in  him. 

The  temptations  to  spend  on  every  hand 
are  so  alluring  that  it  is  very  difficult  for  a 
young  man  of  ordinary  self-control  to  resist 
them  and  save  his  money.  It  is  very  easy, 
especially  in  a  large  city,  with  all  its  allure- 
ments, to  spend  one's  loose  change  for  cigars, 
for  drinks,  theater  tickets,  dinners  at  expen- 
sive restaurants  and  hotels,  and  all  sorts  of  in- 
dulgences. These  are  the  things  that  go  far 
to  prevent  the  accumulation  of  that  first  thou- 
sand dollars  which  is  so  important  in  the 
foundation  for  all  one's  future  success  and 
happiness. 

If  you  really  want  to  make  your  dreams 
come  true  you  will  enter  into  a  compact  with 
yourself  to  save  a  certain  amount  every  week 
out  of  your  salary. 

It  is  a  gi-eat  thing  always  to  have  some  ob- 
ject in  view.  No  better  one  could  be  found 
than  that  of  helping  your  country  by  invest- 
ing all  you  can  in  War  Certificates  and  Thrift 
Stamps.     Forego  the  luxuries  and  extrava- 


6a  Thrift 

gances  of  former  days  and  show  your  patriot- 
ism in  this  way.  Thus  you  may  be  able  to 
establish  not  only  habits  of  thrift  and  econ- 
omy, but  to  bring  into  reality  that  home  you 
have  been  visualizing. 

A  little  money  in  reserve  is  a  great  encour- 
ager,  a  perpetual  stimulus  to  ambition.  The 
consciousness  that  we  are  getting  on  in  the 
world,  that  we  are  laying  the  foundation  for 
the  home  of  our  dreams,  is  a  tremendous  mo- 
tive which  marvelously  increases  our  courage, 
our  ability,  our  efficiency. 

Thrift  is  the  beginning  of  success.  It  puts 
a  foundation  under  your  air  castle.  It  builds 
that  "home  of  my  own"  to  which  every 
healthy,  ambitious  young  fellow  looks  forward 
as  the  culmination  of  his  hopes. 

Who  can  ever  estimate  what  the  saving  for 
a  home  has  done  for  people!  This  glorious 
vision  has  held  vast  multitudes  of  men  and 
women  to  their  task,  kept  them  from  yielding 
to  a  thousand  tempting  calls  bidding  for  their 
money. 

Learning  how  to  hold  on  to  money  without 
being  mean  or  stingy  with  it  is  a  great  art. 
Anything  which  will  induce  the  habit  of  sav- 


"A  Home  of  My  Own''  61 

ing  in  this  extravagant  nation  is  a  blessing. 
The  whole  tendency  is  toward  a  wicked  waste 
of  money,  shameful  extravagance  in  living  and 
in  social  life.  No  matter  how  small  your  in- 
come, make  it  above  the  line  of  your  expenses, 
and  without  being  penurious  keep  as  far  with- 
in this  boundary-line  as  possible. 

Only  recently  I  heard  a  young  man  boast- 
ing that  he  got  a  big  salary,  but  he  had  never 
laid  up  a  cent  in  his  life,  and  that  often  at  the 
end  of  the  week  he  was  behind  and  had  to 
borrow  money.  Now,  think  of  a  young  man 
boasting  of  this,  and  j^et  expecting  to  get  on 
in  the  world,  to  own  a  home  of  his  own,  to 
stand  for  something  in  his  conmiunity,  to  be 
a  man  of  importance  among  his  fellows! 

Most  people  are  entirely  too  confident 
about  their  financial  safety.  They  do  not  ex- 
pect the  emergencies  of  illness,  of  accident,  of 
business,  of  change  of  location,  losses  which 
war  brings,  for  example,  and  which  panics  and 
fires  cause.  How  many  thousands  of  people 
to-day  are  eating  the  bitter  fruit  of  poverty, 
grinding  penury,  are  homeless,  moneyless, 
who,  if  they  had  but  put  a  little  money  in  the 
savings   bank  during  tlieir  productive  years 


62  Thrift 

would  have  had  a  good  home,  comforts,  and 
contentment ! 

On  every  hand  we  see  people  going  through 
life  with  stooping  shoulders,  drawn  features, 
slaves  of  a  mortgage  or  other  debts  which  are 
sapping  the  life  out  of  them,  making  them 
prematurely  old,  when  they  should  be  in  the 
very  prime  of  life.  You  can  always  see  the 
mortgage  looking  out  of  the  ugly  wrinkles 
which  it  has  made  in  their  faces.  Had  they 
sought  thrift  as  their  companion  through  life, 
how  different  would  have  been  their  lot. 

Is  there  anything  more  pathetic  to  see  than 
so  many  men  and  women  who  have  reached 
middle  life  or  later  with  no  home  or  money, 
nothing  saved  for  a  rainy  day,  not  only  with- 
out prospects,  but  many  of  them  without  oc- 
cupations? Parents  are  often  to  blame  for 
much  of  this  unfortunate  condition,  because 
they  did  not  early  inculcate  into  their  chil- 
dren the  principles  of  economy,  did  not  estab- 
lish in  their  early  careers  the  habit  of  thrift. 

When  you  are  fifty  or  more,  my  young 
friend,  the  dollar  will  look  very  different  to 
you  than  it  does  now,  when  the  years  are  few, 
the  future  full  of  promise,  and  you  feel  so 


"A  Home  of  ISIy  Own"  63 

confident  of  great  achievements.  As  you  ap- 
proach middle  life  your  money  possessions  will 
take  on  new  values. 

A  man  cannot  respect  himself  when  he  is 
letting  slip  through  his  fingers  the  dollars 
which  he  knows  ought  to  be  saved.  Oh,  the 
sorrow,  the  suffering  inflicted,  in  tens  of 
thousands  of  hearts,  by  men  who  realize  too 
late  that  they  have  lost  or  squandered  money 
enough  to  have  provided  a  home  or  started 
them  in  business,  to  have  given  them  inde- 
pendence, to  have  provided  for  their  old  age! 

On  every  hand,  we  see  people  who  have 
never  been  able  to  get  ahead  in  the  world 
simply  because  they  were  not  willing  to  make 
early  sacrifices,  or  to  bear  hardships  or  priva- 
tions in  order  to  make  good  investments  for 
the  future.  They  could  not  restrain  their  de- 
sires, they  must  have  a  good  time,  they  must 
buy  what  they  wanted,  even  if  they  had  to  run 
into  debt  for  it. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  estimate  the  tre- 
mendous benefit  which  savings  banks  and  in- 
surance companies  have  conferred  upon  man- 
kind. In  tens  of  thousands  of  very  humble 
homes  we  find  the  light  of  hope  and  cheer,  a 


64  Thrift 

sense  of  security  because  there  are  insurance 
policies  there.  The  history  of  many  a  life  in- 
surance policy,  how  it  has  saved  the  home 
from  the  mortgage,  has  enabled  business  men 
to  start  again  after  their  property  was  lost  or 
their  business  swept  away  by  panic,  would 
read  like  a  romance. 

A  life  insurance  policy  has  often  made  all 
the  difference  between  home  and  no  home, 
food  and  no  food !  It  has  saved  multitudes  of 
men  from  the  humiliation  of  utter  failure,  and 
spared  many  families  the  shame  of  being 
turned  out  of  their  home. 

Someone  has  said  that  it  is  not  the  high 
cost  of  living,  but  the  eost  of  living  high,  that 
cripples  so  many  lives  and  compels  great  abil- 
ity to  put  up  with  the  returns  of  mediocrity. 
Many  people  who  are  now  poor,  without 
homes,  living  from  hasd  to  mouth,  have  earned 
enough  to  have  made  them  independent  if 
they  had  used  good  sense  in  guarding  their 
earnings. 

I  know  of  no  other  habit  quite  like  that  of 
the  early  formed  habit  of  thrift;  not  the 
stingy,  squeezing,  holding-on  habit,  but  the 
habit  of  wise  living  and  spending,  the  wise 


"A  Home  or  ISIy  Own"  65 

administration  of  our  money  and  our  domestic 
affairs.  A  provident  wife  can  establish  such 
a  system  of  household  thrift  that,  combined 
with  her  husband's  efforts,  the  family  budget 
will  take  on  remarkably  large  proportions 
and,  within  a  short  time,  the  possession  of  a 
home  of  their  own  may  become  an  established 
fact. 

In  criticism  of  our  American  housewives  it 
has  been  said  over  and  over  again  that  a 
French  housewife  would  feed  a  family  on  what 
an  average  family  throws  away.  Years  ago, 
a  great  economist,  Edward  Atkinson,  said 
that  in  the  United  States  the  waste  from  bad 
cooking  alone  was  over  a  thousand  million 
dollars  a  year.  And  our  wastefulness  and 
extravagance  have  gone  on  increasing  in  every 
direction. 

The  poor  would  be  shocked  if  they  were  told 
that  they  were  more  extravagant  than  the 
well-to-do.  Yet  it  is  even  so.  The  average 
poor  woman  in  America,  for  instance,  rarely 
knows  how  to  buy  food  for  the  family  econom- 
ically. She  does  not,  like  the  French  woman, 
know  how  to  buy  the  inexpensive  cuts  of  meat 
and  cook  them  so  that  they  will  be  as  palatable 


66  Thrift 

and  nutritious  as  the  more  expensive  ones. 
Nor  does  she  know  how  to  economize  in  other 
equally  important  details. 

Since  America  entered  the  war,  both  our 
men  of  wealth  and  our  housekeepers  have  been 
learning  lessons  in  economy.  Mr.  Hoover  and 
his  army  of  assistants  at  the  Food  Department 
in  Washington  and  all  over  this  country  are 
showing  the  necessity  of  economizing  in  every 
possible  way,  and  instructing  people  in  all 
ranks  how  to  do  it.  Housewives  are  being 
taught  food  values  and  how  to  cook  in  the 
best  and  most  economical  way;  inexpensive 
but  nutritious  menus  are  suggested,  and  thus 
women  are  shown  how  to  make  a  good  meal 
out  of  leftovers  that  formerly  went  into  the 
garbage  pail. 

Women  of  all  classes  are  especially  cau- 
tioned in  regard  to  the  saving  of  food.  They 
are  asked  to  save  every  bit  of  meat,  every 
crust  of  bread,  stale  or  otherwise,  even  the 
crumbs ;  and  not  to  pare  potatoes,  but  to  cook 
them  with  their  jackets  on.  People  are  also 
advised  to  wear  their  old  clothing  as  much  as 
possible,  instead  of  purchasing  new,  for  we 
are  told  that  our  practice  of  economy  will 


"A  Home  of  My  Own"  G7 

help  win  the  war.  Never  before  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  the  subject  of  economy  and 
the  necessity  for  thrift  been  so  universally  em- 
phasized as  to-day.  Never  before  in  this  coun- 
try has  the  word  economy  been  so  persist- 
ently dinned  into  our  ears  through  the  press, 
through  posters,  through  the  pulpit,  through 
pamphlets,  through  lectures — in  every  possi- 
ble way. 

Are  you  learning  that  great  lesson  of  the 
hour? 


IX 


"he     that     SOWETH     sparingly     SH.VLL     REAP 

sparingly'* 

Many  as  are  the  maxims  which  urge  the 
practice  of  economy,  those  which  warn  against 
false  economy  are  almost  equally  numerous. 

Solomon  said:  "There  is  that  scattereth  and 
yet  increaseth;  and  there  is  that  withholdeth 
more  than  is  meet,  but  it  tendeth  to  poverty." 
"Saving  at  the  spigot  and  wasting  at  the 
bunghole,"  "Spoiling  the  ship  to  save  a  cent's 
worth  of  tar,"  and  many  another  homely  say- 
ing, reflect  the  common-sense  view  of  forms  of 
false  economies  which  tend  to  loss  instead  of 
gain. 

There  are  people  who  waste  much  more  in- 
valuable time  in  trying  to  save  a  little,  by 
picayune  methods,  than  the  things  saved  are 
worth.  I  know  a  business  man  who  makes  his 
employees,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  save  the 
string  from  packages,  even  if  to  save  it  takes 
twice  as  much  time  as  the  string  is  worth. 

68 


"He  That  Soweth  SparixCxLy"       09 

This  man,  also,  in  trying  to  save  electricity, 
keeps  his  place  of  business  so  dark  and  dingy 
that  he  loses  custom.  He  does  not  realize  that 
a  good  light  is  the  best  kind  of  advertisement. 

In  trying  to  economize  in  petty  ways  thou- 
sands of  men  fail  to  do  the  bigger  things  pos- 
sible for  them.  They  develop  a  sort  of  mania 
for  saving,  for  small  economies,  without  real- 
izing it,  or  how  they  are  in  danger  of  starving 
their  minds  and  stranghng  their  growth  to- 
ward larger  things. 

You  cannot  afford  to  economize  at  the  ex- 
pense of  mental  strength,  at  the  expense  of 
efficiency.  These  are  your  stock  in  trade — 
the  machinery  and  apparatus  out  of  which 
you  must  carve  your  destiny.  Do  not  tamper 
with  your  creative,  productive  ability.  Keep 
up  your  standards  at  all  hazards.  This  will 
enable  you  to  produce  to  the  maximum  of  your 
possibilities,  for  it  keeps  you  in  good  health 
and  in  a  condition  to  enjoy  the  largest,  com- 
pletest  happiness. 

Nothing  surprises  a  yoimg  man  more  than 
the  wonderful  working  of  this  law:  "For  who- 
soever hath,  to  him  shall  be  given,  and  he 
shall  have  more  abundance." 


70  Thrift 

What  a  wonderful  power  there  is  in  this 
law  of  increase.  There  is  everything  in  hold- 
ing the  right  view  of  econonij^  investing  wise- 
ly, in  keejDing  the  mind  upon  plenty,  carrying 
the  abundance-thought  instead  of  the  limited, 
narrow,  false  economy  thought. 

"He  that  soweth  sparingly  shall  reap  spar- 
ingly" is  just  as  true  of  the  business  man  as 
of  the  farmer.  Wise  economy  often  means  a 
very  liberal  expenditure. 

I  once  knew  a  man  who,  in  removing  an  old 
building  to  make  way  for  a  new  one,  left  part 
of  the  old  foundation,  because  he  thought  he 
thus  could  save  several  hundred  dollars.  The 
new  building  was  several  stories  higher  than 
the  old  one,  but  only  a  few  weeks  after  it  was 
completed  it  began  to  crack  badly,  and  before 
any  occupant  moved  in  the  Avhole  structure 
collapsed.  Everywhere  in  all  lines  of  human 
endeavor  we  see  the  fatal  effects  of  trying  to 
save  on  foundations. 

The  youth  in  the  past  who  pinched  on  his 
education,  who  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
prepare  for  very  much  of  a  career  because  he 
did  not  think  he  was  going  to  be  very  much  of 
a  man;  the  youth  who  picked  out  the  easy 


"He  That  Sowetii   Spahingly"       71 

problems  in  school  and  skipped  the  hard  ones, 
who  slid  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance, 
who  bragged  that  he  got  the  best  of  his 
teacher  in  school  by  slighting  his  lessons, 
shirking,  by  cribbing  in  his  examinations;  the 
youth  who  was  not  willing  to  pay  the  price, 
not  willing  to  sacrifice  his  desire  for  a  good 
time  in  order  to  improve  himself,  has  been 
heard  from.  He  has  been  floundering  along 
in  his  career,  handicajDped  by  his  ignorance, 
held  back  by  his  lack  of  preparation.  The 
great  failure  army  is  filled  with  human  wrecks 
whose  superstructure  went  down  because  of 
their  superficial,  faulty  foundation. 

I  know  a  man  who  has  always  worked  like 
a  slave.  He  went  into  business  for  himself 
early  in  life,  but  has  been  imder  a  perpetual 
handicap  because  in  his  youth  he  had  thought 
it  was  foolish  to  waste  so  much  time  in  laying 
an  educational  foundation  and  quit  the  gram- 
mar school  before  he  was  half  through,  and 
started  out  for  himself.  Because  of  his  lim- 
ited knowledge,  his  narrow,  pinched  founda- 
tion, he  has  always  been  placed  at  a  great  dis- 
advantage with  his  competitors,  who  thought 
it  worth  while  to  be  well  informed  and  to  lay 


12  Thrift 

broad,  deep  foundations.  The  result  has 
been  that  his  whole  life  has  been  marred,  and 
he  never  has  accomplished  anything  like  what 
he  might  have  accomplished  but  for  this  great 
lack.  He  never  dreamed  that  the  skipped 
problems  way  back  in  his  boyhood,  the  neg- 
lected tasks,  would  reappear  in  his  mature 
manhood,  like  Banquo's  ghost,  to  mar  both  his 
success  and  his  happiness.  So  during  his  later 
years  this  man  has  been  trying  to  do  very 
painfully  and  very  imperfectly  what  he  could 
have  done  so  easily  way  back  in  his  youth. 
The  result  of  all  this  has  been  a  limited  ca- 
reer. The  man  has  failed  several  times  be- 
cause he  chose  a  career  which  was  not  in  keep- 
ing with  his  lack  of  early  training. 

If  he  had  not  tried  to  save  on  his  founda- 
tion, if  he  had  been  liberally  prepared  for  the 
career  which  he  chose,  and  had  not  had  to 
spend  such  a  large  part  of  his  life  in  trying 
to  overcome  his  handicap,  his  lack,  to  strength- 
en his  foundation  after  the  superstructure  was 
built,  he  would  have  had  time  to  do  the  things 
which  make  for  a  broad,  liberal  manhood,  and 
have  become  a  man  of  some  importance,  a 
man  who  would  have  carried  weight  in  his 


"He  That  Sowetii  Sparingly"      73 

community.  As  it  is,  his  life  has  been  so 
starved  and  pinched  that  he  has  never  passed 
for  very  much  of  a  man. 

How  many  parents  in  their  eagerness  to  in- 
crease the  family  income  deprive  their  children 
of  a  college  or  university  education  and  rush 
them  into  business  half  prepared  to  meet  op- 
portunities for  advancement  that  later  come 
to  them  I  They  cannot  send  the  bey  or  girl  to 
school  or  college  because  "the  rainy  day"  is  a 
sort  of  specter  which  rises  at  every  feast, 
whenever  they  try  to  get  some  enjoyment  or 
satisfaction  out  of  the  present.  They  are  al- 
ways saving  for  some  future  time;  always 
postponing  things  till  next  year,  and  this 
"next  year"  never  comes. 

How  many  of  us  economize  in  our  friend- ( 
ships  by  neglecting  them;  economize  in  our 
social  life,  pleading  with  ourselves  that  we 
cannot  afford  to  take  the  time  for  visiting  and 
receiving  visits!  We  economize  on  our  vaca- 
tions, until  we  are  obliged  to  take  long,  en- 
forced rests  from  the  arduous  duties  of  our 
business  or  profession,  because  the  machinery 
of  our  bodies,  so  delicately  and  wonderfully 


74  Thrift 

made,  has  become  so  worn  it  is  in  danger  of 
snapping  at  some  vital  point ! 

Many  people  live  in  such  constant  terror 
of  "that  terrible  rainy  day"  that  they  do  not 
enjoy  the  present.  They  deny  themselves  this 
and  they  cannot  afford  that;  they  postpone 
their  real  living;  they  just  exist  to-day,  ex- 
pecting really  to  live  and  enjoy  themselves 
to-morrow.  If  they  go  away  on  a  little  vaca- 
tion, or  if  they  travel  at  all,  they  do  it  in  a 
way  which  destroys  most  of  the  advantages 
they  would  otherwise  get  from  it.  They  are 
afraid  of  spending  a  penny  for  anything  but 
their  actual  fare  and  the  barest  necessaries. 

I  know  of  a  New  York  business  man  who 
before  the  war  traveled  abroad  and  went  to 
many  interesting  points,  but  he  w^as  too  stingy 
to  go  into  historic  homes  or  buildings  where 
any  admission  was  charged.  For  example,  he 
visited  the  homes  of  very  famous  characters, 
in  different  countries,  homes  w^hich  are  re- 
garded as  shrines  by  thousands  of  intelligent 
people  who  liave  visited  these  countries,  but 
he  never  entered  them  because  he  would  not 
pay  the  price  of  admission.  He  said  that  he 
had  seen  the  outside  of  the  buildings,  and  that 


"He  That  Soweth  Sparingly"      75 

was  enough.  The  result  is  that,  though  he  has 
traveled  considerably,  he  cannot  talk  interest- 
ingly, or  even  intelligently,  about  any  place 
he  has  visited. 

I  have  known  people  of  means  traveling 
abroad  who  were  too  stingy  to  buy  Baedekers 
or  other  guide-books,  and  who  would  never 
think  of  hiring  a  guide  to  show  them  about, 
even  in  the  most  historic  places.  Does  it  not 
seem  strange  that  peojDle  will  spend  so  much 
money  for  traveling  and  then  be  too  parsi- 
monious to  pay  a  little  extra  money  to  see  the 
very  things  they  had  gone  so  far  to  see? 

Sometimes  liberality,  which  would  seem  to 
a  smaller  man  extravagance,  is  the  best  kind 
of  economy.  Friendly  help,  inspiration,  cul- 
tured acquaintances,  are  never  too  dearly 
bought  at  any  price  one  can  afford  to  pay. 
Everything  must  be  measured  by  the  end  in 
view,  the  general  result  to  be  obtained. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  a  man  can 
afford  to  pay  ten  or  fifteen  dollars  for  a  seat 
at  a  banquet  table  considered  by  itself.  He 
may  pay  fifteen  dollars  for  his  dinner,  but  he 
may  get  a  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  inspira- 
tion from  association  with  distinguished  guests. 


76  Thrift 

Such  occasions  are  often  a  great  stimulus  to 
the  ambition.  They  bring  one  in  contact  with 
persons  of  broader  culture  and  wider  experi- 
ence, and  it  is  wise  expenditure  to  avail  our- 
selves of  everything  within  our  reach  which 
makes  for  culture  and  breadth  of  vision. 

How  much  better  it  would  be  if  you  can 
possibly  afford  it  to  go  where  the  leaders  in 
your  specialty  lunch  or  dine,  than  to  patron- 
ize a  place  where  the  atmosphere  is  not  con- 
genial to  you !  This  opportunity  for  acquaint- 
ance and  friendly  relations  with  men  of  re- 
finement would  be  worth  very  much  more  to 
you  than  the  few  cents  or  even  the  dollars  you 
save  by  going  to  a  cheaper  place. 

Of  course,  I  would  not  advise  anyone  to 
commercialize  his  ability,  or  to  try  to  sell  his 
brains  by  wire-pulling  methods,  but  I  do  ad- 
vise those  who  are  struggling  to  get  on  to 
form  the  acquaintance  of  those  who  can  in- 
spire and  help  them.  It  is  a  tremendous  stim- 
ulus to  one's  ambition  to  come  in  close  con- 
tact with  thrifty,  energetic  people  who  are 
successful  in  one's  own  line  of  endeavor.  We 
are  more  likely  to  do  better  ourselves,  to  bring 
out  our  full  resources,  when  we  associate  with 


KWOOD    &    UNOeRWOOl 


JOHN   D.   ROCKEFELLER 


"He  That  Soweth  Sparingly"      77 

them.  To  make  the  acquaintance  of  such 
people  and  know  them  is  one  of  the  most 
profitable  investments  a  young  person  can 
make. 

If  one  is  after  the  largest,  completest  possi- 
ble manhood,  well-rounded,  full-orbed,  broad, 
then  he  will  regard  any  expenditure  to  this 
end  as  the  best  kind  of  a  paying  investment, 
and  he  will  not  be  held  back  by  a  false  sense 
of  economy  or  deceptive  notions  of  extrava- 
gance. 

Stuffing  the  pocketbook  and  starving  the 
mind  is  pretty  poor  business,  and  is  always 
an  indication  of  a  narrow  outlook  on  life,  a 
morbid  view  of  things,  a  pinched  mentality. 
The  world  is  full  of  rich  peojDle  who  talk  about 
leading  the  simple  life  when  they  mean  the 
stingy  life. 


X 

SPENDTHRIFTS   OF  TIME   AND   ENERGY 

The  wise  economist  is  the  one  who  saves 
his  time,  who  regards  every  moment  as  pre- 
cious capital  which  he  cannot  afford  to  throw 
away,  who  regards  his  energy  as  a  divine  gift, 
too  sacred  to  be  foolishly  expended. 

The  world  is  full  of  people  who  are  plod- 
ding along  in  mediocrity  who  have  enough 
ability  to  do  something  worth  while  if  they 
would  only  get  rid  of  the  side  issues,  the  non- 
essentials which  eat  up  their  time  and  sap 
their  energy. 

He  who  would  make  the  most  possible  of 
his  life  must  early  learn  to  stop  all  leaks  of 
power.  The  wasting  of  opportunities,  time, 
and  vital  forces,  constitutes  the  great  tragedy 
of  human  life.  It  is  the  principal  cause  of 
imhappiness  and  failure.  JNIany  a  man  who  is 
economical  to  stinginess  in  money  matters, 
squanders  with  fearful  prodigality  his  physi- 
cal, mental,  and  moral  energy  and  his  time. 
He  scorns  a  vacation,  considering  it  a  fright- 

78 


Spendthrifts  of  Time  and  Energy     79 

ful  waste  of  precious  hours,  loses  needed  sleep 
in  working  late  at  night  at  his  desk,  and  is 
indifferent  to  regularity  in  eating.  Such  men 
pay  the  penalty  in  lowered  vitality  and  a 
shortened  business  career. 

INIany  busy  people  are  shameful  wasters  of 
time  and  energ}^,  simply  because  they  do  the 
lower  things  when  higher  ones  are  possible. 
They  read  a  poor  book  when  they  might  read 
a  better  one ;  they  squander  time  with  ordinary, 
purposeless  companions  when  better  ones  are 
possible ;  they  waste  tune  in  half-doing  things, 
in  botching,  bungling  and  blundering,  in  do- 
ing things  "just  for  now,"  doing  things  over 
and  over,  because  they  were  not  done  right 
the  first  time. 

I  know  a  business  man  who  is  ambitious  to 
do  great  things,  but  who  gets  so  clogged  up 
with  details  that  he  cannot  seem  to  get  out 
from  under  them.  He  tries  to  hurry  with  his 
woi-k,  but  the  little  everlasting  details  con- 
stantly jump  up  and  get  away  with  such  a 
large  part  of  his  time  and  energy  that  the 
day's  work  is  always  disappointing,  and  he 
leaves  his  office  at  night  very  unliappy.  A 
confused  mind  is  an  ineffective  mind. 


80  Thrift 

The  confused,  excited  mind  is  not  only  in- 
efficient, but  is  likely  to  do  some  very  foolish 
things.  To  guard  against  this,  it  is  important 
to  keep  your  mentality  calm  and  balanced. 

The  next  time  things  press  you  so  hard  on 
every  hand  that  you  do  not  know  which  way 
to  turn,  stop  and  take  an  inventory  of  the 
tasks  to  be  done,  and  you  will  find  that  your 
confused  mind,  which  is  rapidly  exhausting 
your  vitality,  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
you  are  mentally  trying  to  do  many  things  at 
the  same  time.  In  other  words,  the  sense  of 
mental  pressure  is  caused  by  the  constant  an- 
ticipation of  the  tasks  ahead  of  you.  Now, 
when  you  know  you  can  only  attend  to  one 
thing  at  a  time,  why  not  shut  out  everything 
else  until  you  are  through  with  that  one,  and 
then  take  the  next,  and  so  on  to  the  end,  with- 
out attempting  to  do  these  things  over  and 
over  again  by  anticipation? 

If  we  could  only  learn  thus  to  concentrate 
the  mind  intensely  upon  the  things  we  are 
doing  and  shut  out  everything  else  until  its 
turn  came,  we  would  never  have  that  sense  of 
confusion  and  pressure  which  so  interferes 
with  efficiency  and  happiness. 


Spendthrifts  of  Time  and  Energy     81 

There  was  in  process  of  building,  in  Eng- 
land, a  clock  in  an  edifice  in  which  many 
lawyers  had  their  offices,  and  there  was  often 
a  large  congregation  of  them  in  the  lobby  and 
corridors. 

The  clockmaker  sent  one  of  his  men  for  a 
motto  to  put  under  the  mammoth  clock.  The 
messenger  asked  the  first  man  he  met,  who, 
not  loiowing  what  the  boy  meant,  said:  "Be- 
gone about  your  business!" 

The  clockmaker  received  the  motto,  as  the 
messenger  delivered  it,  with  surprise;  but 
after  thinking  a  moment,  decided  to  use  it. 
It  served  as  a  quiet  reminder  to  loungers,  as 
it  ticked  off  the  minutes  that  were  as  fleeting 
as  the  sun's  rays. 

The  men  who  accomplish-  things,  who  do 
big  things  in  a  big  way,  protect  their  execu- 
tive ability  by  all  sorts  of  safeguards.  Many 
men  keep  secretaries  as  a  sort  of  buffer  to 
protect  themselves  from  people  who  steal 
their  time. 

We  may  not  begrudge  our  time  to  people 
who  have  claims  upon  us,  or  who  give  us  some 
compensating  advantage,  or  to  those  who  need 
our  assistance;  but  it  is  exasperating  to  be 


82  Thrift 

obliged  to  sit  for  half  an  hour  or  an  hour 
and  listen  to  some  irrelevant  matter  which 
does  not  interest  us,  just  because  we  do  not 
want  to  appear  rude. 

It  is  not  alone  in  the  busy  office  that  we  find 
these  spendthrifts  of  time  and  energy;  they 
are  just  as  frequently  seen  in  our  homes.  The 
housewife,  while  in  the  midst  of  her  domestic 
duties,  is  called  to  the  telephone  to  listen  to  a 
garrulous  neighbor's  latest  gossip,  or  in  re- 
sponse to  the  door-bell  a  friendly  visitor  ap- 
pears with  long-drawn-out  tale  of  domestic 
tribulations. 

Some  women  are  always  dropping  in  to  chat 
with  the  busy  woman  who  is  trying  her  best 
to  get  a  little  time  for  the  things  worth  while. 
These  idle,  purposeless  women  sit  and  chat 
and  chat  until  the  opportunity  for  doing  what 
the  ambitious,  energetic  woman  longed  to  do 
has  gone  by.  If  such  people  only  realized  the 
preciousness  of  time,  the  great  value  of  a 
single  day,  they  would  not  let  it  slip  through 
their  fingers  so  lightly  or  treat  it  so  flippantly. 

"There  can  be  no  thrift  or  ultimate  suc- 
cess where  hour  is  not  fastened  to  hour  and 
moment   woven   into   moment   in   the   great 


Spendthrifts  of  Time  and  Energy     83 

pattern  of  life,"  says  a  writer  on  "Life's 
Waste." 

"The  waste  of  time  is  life's  greatest  blunder 
and  most  destructive  force.  In  the  fragments 
is  an  abundance  of  opportunity.  Oh,  how 
ruinous  waste  has  shattered  the  hopes  and  am- 
bitions of  men !  It  has  been  the  author  of  de- 
spair and  even  death  to  the  best  in  life.  The 
greatest  discovery  of  young  life  is  the  value  of 
time.  .  .  .  The  value  which  a  man  places 
upon  the  moments  of  to-day  is  the  author  of 
all  good  in  every  to-morrow." 

Think  of  the  possibilities  that  live  in  a  single 
day!  Think  of  what  it  would  mean  to  some- 
one, somewhere, — to  the  producer  of  great 
masterpieces  in  art  and  science! 

When  you  start  out  in  the  morning  just 
try  to  picture  to  yourself  the  wonderful  value 
of  that  day.  Just  think  what  j^ou  would  make 
of  it  if  you  knew  you  would  never  have  an- 
other— ^what  every  minute  would  mean  to  you  I 
How  you  would  crowd  values  into  it!  Every 
second  would  be  precious. 

"There  are  moments,"  says  Dean  Alford, 
"which  are  worth  more  than  years.  We  can- 
not help  it.    There  is  no  proportion  between 


84  Thrift 

spaces  of  time  in  importance  or  in  value.  A 
stray,  unthought-of  five  minutes  may  contain 
the  event  of  a  life.  And  this  all-important 
moment — who  can  tell  when  it  will  be  upon 
us?" 

Every  day  is  a  precious  gift  from  the  Cre- 
ator— fresh,  beautiful,  filled  with  magnificent 
possibilities.  Don't  squander  it  in  useless 
motions  and  wasted  energies;  don't  idle  it 
away;  don't  watch  the  clock  and  wish  it  away. 
Don't  throw  it  away ;  don't  waste  it ;  don't  kiU 
it;  for  your  future  lives  in  it. 


XI 


THE    BANK-BOOK    HABIT 

"Sow  an  Act  and  you  reap  a  Habit, 
Sow  a  Hal)it  and  you  reap  a  Character, 
Sow  a  Character  and  you  reap  a  Destiny." 

When  the  Board  of  Education  of  New 
York  Citj'^  decided  to  run  penny  banks  in  tlie 
public  schools  to  encourage  the  pupils  in 
thrift,  Vice-President  Greene  said:  "The 
Board  of  Education  wants  to  make  the  pupils 
thrifty  as  well  as  wise.  It  wants  to  remove 
inducements  to  extravagance  and  to  encour- 
age them  to  take  care  of  their  pennies  until 
their  savings  have  reached  an  amount  that 
will  enable  them  to  open  individual  accounts 
with  the  banks.  At  present  their  few  pennies 
do  not  enable  them  to  do  this." 

Thus  thousands  of  young  people  were  given 
an  opportunity,  and  were  encouraged  to  form 
the  bank-book  habit,  which  has  since  enabled 
many  of  them  to  invest  in  Liberty  Bonds,  and 
in  this  way  they  are  helping  their  country  as 
well  as  themselves. 

We  must  not  overlook  the  physical  basis  of 
85 


86  ThhiI'T 

habit.  It  is  very  difficult  to  do  things  we  have 
not  formed  a  habit  of  doing.  The  nerves  con- 
trolling the  muscles  are  dependent  upon  the 
brain  and  respond  to  its  reactions,  learn  its 
habits,  and  do  automatically  whatever  the 
brain  has  formed  a  habit  of  doing. 

If  we  have  formed  careless,  spendthrift 
habits,  habits  which  drag  us  in  the  opposite 
direction  from  that  we  wish  to  go,  we  must 
put  out  an  enormous  amount  of  energy  to 
fight  against  their  grip;  for  habit  is  second 
nature  and  gets  as  strong  a  hold  upon  us  as 
our  original  temperamental  tendencies.  We 
are  placed  at  the  tremendous  disadvantage  of 
trying  to  form  new  tracks  for  thought,  new 
highways  for  habit,  at  the  same  time  that  we 
are  trying  to  obliterate  the  deep  furrows  which 
a  thousand  repetitions  have  already  made  in 
the  brain  and  nerve  centers. 

For  all  practical  purposes,  habit  for  a  mid- 
dle-aged person  is  fate,  it  is  almost  hoj^elessly 
certain  that  what  has  been  done  every  day  for 
twenty  years  will  be  repeated  thereafter.  We 
imagine  that  we  can  break  a  bad  habit  at  any 
time,  but  it  usually  takes  just  about  twice  as 
long  to  break  a  habit  as  it  did  to  make  it. 


The  Bank-Book  Habit  87 

When  Rip  Van  Winkle  said  "I  won't  count 
this  time,"  he  gave  voice  to  a  very  common 
delusion.  But  though  it  was  easy  for  him  to 
say  that  he  would  not  "count"  this  lapse  or 
that  into  his  old  habit,  the  cells  of  the  brain 
"counted"  it;  as  Prof.  James  said,  every  nerve 
and  fiber  in  his  organism  were  counting  it. 
Down  deep  in  his  nervous  centers  there  was  a 
call  for  alcoholic  stimulant  so  loud,  so  insist- 
ent that  Rip  Van  Winkle  was  practically 
powerless  to  resist  it.  Every  cent  he  had  and 
some  that  he  did  not  have  went  for  drink.  It 
is  the  same  with  the  spendthrift  habit.  It  is 
one  of  the  hardest  to  break  and  one  of  the 
most  ruinous  to  fall  into.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  bank-book  habit  is  one  of  the  best  friends 
a  boy  or  girl,  a  young  man  or  young  woman, 
can  make. 

Every  child  should  be  started  in  life  with 
a  bank  account,  however  small,  and  something 
should  be  constantly  added  to  this  sum,  no 
matter  how  little,  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
to  implant  in  his  mind  the  idea  of  saving,  and 
the  larger  idea  of  thrift.  A  child  should  grow 
up  with  the  idea  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  his  self-respect,  his  safety,  to  have  a  little 


88  Thrift 

money  between  himself  and  want,  something 
which  will  stand  as  a  protection,  a  buffer,  be- 
tween himself  and  the  demanding  world  in 
case  of  necessity. 

"There  is  a  real  exhilaration  in  a  bank  ac- 
count, even  if  it  is  not  a  large  one,"  says  the 
Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.  Parkhurst.  "A  young  fellow 
recently  had  a  certain  amount,  not  a  large  sum, 
put  to  his  credit  in  a  savings  bank.  It  made 
an  epoch  in  his  history,  and  when  six  months 
later  his  passbook  was  written  up  and  showed 
an  interest  accumulation  of  five  dollars  and 
twenty-two  cents  it  straightened  him  up  to 
three  inches  above  the  ordinary  height,  and  he 
declared  that  he  felt  as  though  he  belonged  to 
the  capitalistic  class  and  was  moving  among 
the  high  moneyed  circles." 

The  moment  a  young  man  begins  to  save 
systematically  and  appreciates  the  true  value 
of  money  he  necessarily  becomes  a  larger  man. 
He  takes  broader  views  of  life.  He  begins  to 
have  a  better  opinion  of  himself.  Trust  takes 
the  place  of  doubt,  his  savings  are  the  actual 
demonstration  that  he  has  not  only  the  ability 
to  earn,  but  also  to  keep  his  money,  and,  as 


The  Bank-Book  Habit  80 

has  been  said  before,  it  takes  greater  wisdom 
to  hold  on  to  money  tlian  to  make  it. 

Thousands  of  men  luive  blessed  the  day  that 
they  opened  a  savings-bank  account  with  the 
resolution  to  deposit  regularly,  for  it  brought 
a  new  motive  into  their  lives.  It  developed 
in  them  the  habit  of  thrift.  It  taught  them 
many  a  lesson  of  improved  business  methods, 
improved  judgment,  because  of  enforced  thrift 
and  economy,  which  are  so  dependent  upon 
system  and  order. 

The  knowledge  that  he  has  been  able  to 
save  has  given  many  a  youth  more  confidence 
in  himself.  It  has  made  him  a  better  em- 
ployee, and  he  will  undertake  greater  respon- 
sibilities because  of  it. 

All  this  means  that  his  earning  power  is 
largely  increased. 

It  is  the  "man  with  the  savings-bank  habit 
who  seldom  gets  laid  off;  he's  the  one  who  can 
get  along  without  you,  but  you  cannot  get 
along  without  him." 

Nothing  makes  a  business  man  so  absolutely 
independent  as  ready  cash. 

The  very  reputation  of  always  having  a 
good  bank  balance  shows  a  clear  head,  good 


90  Thrift 

business  judgment.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
make  your  signature  stand  for  something — 
never  to  have  your  credit  questioned — to  have 
everybody  say  you  are  good  pay  and  quick 
pay. 

A  schoolboy  who  was  asked  to  state  the 
greatest  event  of  the  year  said  that  it  was  the 
fact  that  he  had  saved  fifty  dollars.  From 
one  point  of  view,  he  was  not  so  wide  of  the 
mark.  The  first  fifty  dollars  he  saves  is  really 
one  of  the  most  unportant  things  in  one's  life. 

There  is  an  infinite  meaning  in  little  sav- 
ings. They  are  the  germs  of  a  greater  for- 
tune. Many  people  would  be  surprised  at 
the  vast  accumulations  made  in  a  lifetime  by 
the  continual  and  persistent  saving  of  petty- 
accounts  which  they  despised.  The  tendency 
of  money  judiciously  invested  is  to  multiply — 
the  more  you  get  the  faster  it  accumulates, 
just  like  the  small  boy's  snowball,  the  more  he 
rolls  it  in  the  snow,  the  larger  it  grows. 

A  few  hundred  dollars  or  a  thousand  in  a 
savings  bank  has  often  made  all  the  difference 
between  success  and  failure.  I  know  of  a  con- 
cern which  has  estimated  assets  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  yet  it  was  forced 


The  Bank-13ook  Habit  91 

to  the  wall  for  the  lack  of  five  thousand  dol- 
lars ready  cash. 

A  bank  of  any  standing  must  have  a  sur- 
plus. Every  young  man  of  standing  should 
have  a  surplus  of  savings,  no  matter  how  small. 
Start  it.    Keep  adding  to  it. 

The  youth  who  is  careless  of  his  change, 
who  thinks  that  a  nickel  or  a  dime  or  a  quar- 
ter has  very  little  to  do  with  a  fortune,  is 
forming  a  habit  that  may  cripple  him  for  life. 

Most  people,  especially  young  people,  do 
not  appreciate  the  value  of  small  savings. 
They  think  that  if  they  had  a  large  amount 
it  would  pay  to  put  it  in  the  bank,  or  to  make 
this  or  that  investment,  but  that  they  could 
not  do  much  with  a  small  amount.  The  re- 
sult is  they  keep  their  small  savings  about 
them,  and  this  is  a  constant  temptation  to 
spend,  for  there  are  always  scores  of  ways  of 
getting  rid  of  loose  change.  It  is  very  slip- 
pery. 

I  was  quite  impressed  recently  by  a  remark 
of  a  young  man,  who  said  that  he  had  been 
carrying  his  money  loosely  in  his  pocket  for 
several  years,  and  he  had  found  that  it  slipped 
away  so  fast,  for  all  sorts  of  things  which  he 


92  Thrift 

might  have  gotten  along  witliout,  tliat  he  tried 
the  experiment  of  carrying  all  his  money  in  a 
purse.  The  result  is  that  he  finds  it  much 
easier  to  save,  because  he  says  he  has  time  to 
think  before  he  gets  his  money  out  of  his  purse, 
and  he  often  decides  not  to  buy  what  he  would 
have  bought  had  his  change  been  so  handy  that 
he  could  put  his  hand  on  it  in  an  instant. 

The  saving  habit  is  a  character  builder,  be- 
cause if  we  are  willing  to  make  the  sacrifice 
or  to  practice  the  self-control,  to  forego  the 
passing  pleasures  for  something  more  per- 
manent, we  are  making  it  more  and  more  cer- 
tain that  we  shall  not  throw  away  on  foolish, 
frivolous  things  these  savings,  which  have  cost 
us  so  much. 


58  01 


36  9419 


UC  SOUTHERN  RFGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


imiirmii  iiiiiiiHiiii  iiiM  II  mil  iiiij  I  III  nil  III 
AA    001  027  937   o 


NfVERSITVo.  CALIFORNIA 
LI3RARY 

LOS  ANGELES.  CALIF 


